Ahead of second round, Russia tries to weigh in on French snap elections

4 months ago 18

Amid the historic lead for the French far-right Rassemblement National in the first round of snap legislative elections, Russia weighed in on Wednesday (3 July), throwing its support behind the far-right party days before the decisive second round.

RN – which had courted controversy in the past over its ties to the Kremlin and Vladimir Putin – secured a historic lead in the first electoral round in France on Sunday (30 June) with over 33% of the vote share, well ahead of a broad leftist coalition (27 %) and President Emmanuel Macron’s Ensemble movement (20%).

“The people of France are seeking a sovereign foreign policy that serves their national interests and a break from the dictate of Washington and Brussels,” Russian Foreign Ministry official Andrey Nastasin said on X.

“French officials won’t be able to ignore these profound shifts in the attitudes of the vast majority of citizens,” he added.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday (1 July) Russia was monitoring French elections “very, very closely”.

Observers have expected that Russia might try to weigh in on the outcome of the French vote, in the hope of seeing the Kremlin-friendly RN emerge as the main political force in France, which might curtail Macron’s efforts to continue political and military support for Ukraine.

A study published on the night of the first electoral round found that Russia had conducted targeted disinformation campaigns on social media in an effort to polarise debate, encourage a far-right vote and break the cordon sanitaire.

A parliamentary report published in June last year established that the RN was “aligned” with the Kremlin: “This link is explained […] by a strong convergence of views with Russia on a number of political values and geopolitical issues,” it said.

Strong ties were formed between Kremlin and RN officials over the years, with newly-re-elected MEP Thierry Mariani one of the most active actors in effectuating a rapprochement.

The RN was also “the only French party partly financed by a loan initially granted by a Russian bank, then taken over by a Russian company,” the parliamentary report added. This loan was paid back in full last September.

RN’s party leadership has denied accusations of collusion and, more recently, changed its tone towards the Kremlin, with its new leader Jordan Bardella styling himself as a vocal critic of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“I will not let Russian imperialism absorb an allied state like Ukraine,” Bardella said in a televised debate last week. He pledged to keep funding and arming Kyiv, though he has ruled out sending military instructors and delivering long-range missiles that could hit targets on Russian soil, citing escalation risks.

Some may see this as a long term policy change, “while others believe that Marine Le Pen’s party, bar a few tactical considerations to secure power, will not change on fundamental issues” and return to a pro-Kremlin stance after the second round, Michel Duclos, a foreign affairs expert and special advisor at the Institut Montaigne, a liberal think tank, wrote in a policy note last week.

Russia has been judged a systemic risk by the French authorities, especially in its efforts to muster online disinformation.

French security services revealed in February the existence of an EU-wide pro-Russia propaganda network, dubbed “Portal Kombat,” with close to 200 websites spreading disinformation about the war in Ukraine, and peddling the Kremlin narrative.

[Edited by Alexandra Brzozowski/Zoran Radosavljevic]