Le Pen insists Crimea is ‘Russian’

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen maintained her position that Crimea is Russian, claiming that Crimea’s inhabitants freely voted for the referendum to validate the attachment to Russia in a Wednesday parliamentary hearing.

Le Pen was heard by the National Assembly’s committee of enquiry into foreign interference on Wednesday for over three hours, with many MPs asking the far-right leader where she stands on the Crimea question.

Le Pen reaffirmed her earlier statements where she recognised the annexation of Ukraine by Russia. “Crimea was Russian for two centuries. It was Ukrainian for 60 years, given by a dictator on a whim,” she said.

“As an absolute defender of the referendum, I considered that, freely, the inhabitants of Crimea had expressed themselves by voting to be attached to Russia,” Le Pen added.

“I have no difficulty in saying this […] especially as I went to Crimea, and I could see that they felt much more deeply attached to Russia than to Ukraine,” she concluded on this point, noting that “no refugees” had left the region following the referendum.

Several members of the committee of enquiry, especially the rapporteur Constance Le Grip, noted that international organisations and European states did not recognise the legitimacy or legality of the referendum on the annexation of Crimea by Russia.

To this, Le Pen replied that international organisations, including the UN, were free to organise a new referendum if they wished.

More generally, Le Pen denounced a “terribly hypocritical smear campaign” against her that has been conducted by those who suspect her of influence by Russia – but noted that she had never changed her mind before or after her party took out the still not fully repaid €9 million loan from a Russian bank in 2014.

Regarding the loan, Le Pen refused to establish a link between positions close to those of the Kremlin and the loan, saying it had been concluded because no Western bank was willing to lend her money, adding that she had “signed a loan with a bank, not with Vladimir Putin”.

Le Grip noted that after the bankruptcy of the Frist Czech Russian Bank (FCRB), the debt to Le Pen’s party under its previous name Front National (now Rassemblement National) was first transferred to a car rental company.

She added that it was then purchased by Russian civilian and military aviation company Aviazaptchast, which also features on the list of entities sanctioned by the United States.

Le Pen retorted that she could not stop repaying the loan despite the redemption of the debt, at the risk of “condemning [her] movement to death”.

She also denied being aware that the Russian company had repurchased only the debt that concerned her party and not the total assets of the bank in bankruptcy.

Le Pen confirmed that the loan had been renegotiated to allow her party to repay it over a longer period, despite her party’s financial situation. The remaining sum – more than €7 million out of a total of €9.4 million – will therefore be repaid by 2028.

(Davide Basso | EURACTIV.fr)