Le Pen’s party claims to have repaid Russian loan

Far-right leader Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National says it has fully repaid a loan from a Russian company, hoping to put an end to accusations that it is close to Vladimir Putin’s Russian regime.

In 2014, Rassemblement National (RN) was granted a loan by a Russian bank, the First Czech Russian Bank (FCRB), to finance the 2015 departmental and regional elections campaign. The initial amount of the loan was €9.4 million. The debt was transferred to a Russian company, Aviazapchast, after FCRB went bankrupt.

Now, “the Rassemblement National paid off the balance of its loan of €6,088,784.00 – including capital and interest – 60 months early,” announced Le Pen’s party in a press release on Tuesday, confirming Le Figaro’s information.

Le Pen and her party have always said that the use of a non-European bank was due to the refusal of French and European banks to provide her with financing “despite her excellent election results and opinion polls”.

The loan repayment has also been rescheduled, with the deadline extended from 2019 to 2028. “This early repayment was made possible by RN’s policy of making savings, restructuring its services and renegotiating its contracts, which it has been pursuing for several years”, RN stated in its press release.

The increase in RN’s resources is also linked to a boost in public funding after the party’s success in the 2022 general election when it went from having seven MPs to 89 – now 88. The RN still has debts of around €20 million.

This loan previously fuelled accusations that the RN and Le Pen have ties to Russia.

For example, the publication of a parliamentary committee report last June questioned the “motives” of the lenders “at a time when the party has repeatedly shown its support and closeness to the Russian authorities”.

According to the parliamentary report, RN MEPs were “systematically” aligned with pro-Russian positions in their votes and statements.

Former MEP and now Vice-President of the National Assembly Hélène Laporte, for example, praised the “lesson in democracy” represented by the 2020 constitutional referendum in Russia, which enabled Putin to extend his stay in power.

Le Pen described the report as “dishonest and politicised”.

By getting rid of this loan, the RN is trying to turn the page on this “Putinophilia” trial, a major angle of attack from its opponents, nine months ahead of the European elections in 2024.

(Davide Basso | Euractiv.fr)