Putin’s Russia supports Marine Le Pen on the eve of the French parliamentary elections

Putin vote Le Pen. On the eve of the legislative elections that could bring the far right to power in France, Moscow has spoken. And its preference seems clear.

“The people of France are seeking a sovereign foreign policy that serves their national interests and breaks away from the dictates of Washington and Brussels,” Andrei Nastasin, head of communications for the Russian Foreign Ministry, wrote on the social network X. “The French leadership will not be able to ignore these profound changes in the attitudes of a vast majority of citizens.”

The text, in case there were any doubts, is accompanied by a photo of Marine Le Pen, leader of the National Rally (RN), the far-right party that is the favourite in the second round of the legislative elections on Sunday.

Since the great Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Le Pen has tried to distance herself from Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin. But until a few years ago, the leader of the RN declared herself an admirer of Putin and her party obtained a multimillion-dollar loan from a Russian bank in 2004, which it has already repaid. There are ideological affinities, due to the defence of national identity and sovereignty and misgivings towards the US, the EU and NATO. And also abundant past statements in which the Le Penists supported actions such as the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014.

Today, this new proximity is uncomfortable for the RN, which sees itself closer than ever to governing France, a member of the EU, NATO and a military and economic supporter of Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression. Le Pen and her successor Jordan Bardella, candidate for prime minister, do not want their affinities with the Kremlin to be remembered. Hence, Le Pen was quick to suggest that in reality the message from the Russian Foreign Ministry was not written to help the RN, but the opposite. A way of saying that she has nothing to do with Moscow and of acknowledging that the message has the potential to harm her campaign.

“Yeah [los rusos] they believed that it had an interest [en la victoria de Le Pen]“I wouldn’t have tweeted,” he said in a television interview. “When you make such a showy and provocative tweet, it can be likened to a form of interference,” he added.

It is rare for an official Russian body to come out so clearly in favour of a candidate from another country of its own kind as it has done in this case with Le Pen. In fact, Moscow has tried to keep a low profile with regard to the decisive US elections in November and has distanced itself from the Republican Donald Trump.

“I don’t think you should expect the president of the Russian Federation to turn on his alarm clock to watch the US debates,” Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said of the latest face-to-face between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. “This is not on our agenda.”

Although the Kremlin usually avoids supporting its favourite candidates, it does often try to insert a disruptive agenda into public opinion, as one of its favourite and most successful strategies is to divide Europeans so that in their confusion they have less power against Russia.

The X message about Le Pen is in line with the Kremlin’s usual arguments to convince the European Union to break its alliance with the United States, a country that has maintained NATO protection while Europe dismantled its defence. Putin himself had already blamed Washington for the rise of the far right in Europe a decade ago.

“This upsurge,” Putin said when asked about Le Pen in 2014, “is not so much support for me as awareness of national interests. Europe is facing an influx of immigrants. Did Europe make the decisions that caused this? These decisions were made abroad, in the United States, and Europe is facing the problem.”

The closeness of European nationalist and populist parties to the Kremlin is well documented. The website of Putin’s party contains a letter from Le Pen with the title: “Cooperation between United Russia and the National Front has a great future.” In that letter, the French politician applauded the fact that the head of the Russian party, Andrei Isayev, defended at a forum of the National Front – the former name of the RN – the lifting of sanctions against Russia for the illegal annexation of Crimea and the occupation of Donbas in 2014.

Social Democrat MEP Raphael Glucksman said after the Russian Foreign Ministry’s message in support of Le Pen was published: “The Putin regime is naturally supporting its loyal friends in the RN. This is not sufficiently emphasised: France risks being governed this Sunday by the servile allies of a foreign tyranny at war with European democracies.”

Former allies of Le Pen maintain that the politician, despite distancing herself from Putin in public, has not fundamentally changed her mind. “They are pro-Russian and remain so, no matter what they say,” Robert Ménard, mayor of the French city of Béziers, who has been close to the RN for years, told EL PAÍS a few days ago. “I know them too well, personally,” Ménard added. “They are pro-Russian. For three reasons. They love strong powers. They think that Putin, deep down, defends identity and is a model for us. And they hate the Americans, and the enemies of my friends are my friends. It’s as simple as that.”

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