French far-right National Front leader Marine Le Pen delivers a speech on December 13, 2015 in Henin-Beaumont (AFP Photo/Denis Charlet).
French far-right leader Marine Le Pen met with Russian diplomats in Moscow on Friday in a trip that comes just a month before the French presidential elections.
The National Front leader met with Russia’s State Duma International Affairs Committee and said she would adopt a more positive approach toward Russia if elected, state-owned Russian news agency TASS reported.
Le Pen is currently expected to make the second round of voting in the French presidential election, but pollsters predict that she will lose to centrist Emmanuel Macron, the current frontrunner.
Yes, well. Let’s not forget all the predicting that Trump would lose. Here’s hoping French people have a whole hell of a lot more sense than Americans.
Le Pen has expressed pro-Russian views and favors closer integration between France and Russia. The far-right politician has publicly stated that she sees the disputed region of Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, as part of Russia and wants the European Union to remove sanctions on Moscow.
“I see no reasons that would justify the current hostile attitude of the French authorities toward Russia,” said Le Pen on Friday, according to TASS. “We have always believed that Russia and France need to maintain and develop the ties that have bound us for a long time.”
[…]
The Kremlin on Wednesday denied reports that the conservative presidential candidate, Francois Fillon signed a $50,000 deal with a Lebanese billionaire, Fouad Makhzoumi, to set up meetings for him with Putin. Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the meetings took place but said the report that Fillon had been paid to arrange it was “fake news.” Fillon’s campaign has denied any wrongdoing.
One of Macron’s top aides has accused Russia of interfering in the election by using state-run media to share “false information” about the centrist candidate, Sky News reported.
I was reading about the Fillon scandal the other day. In France, it was enough to destroy his chances, unlike here behind The Gold Curtain, where people are embracing the scandals. Full story here.
But the gap in polls was seldom more than a few percent -- and he had the help of the electoral college system, the final polls were only around 2% out on the national popular vote. Macron leads Le Pen in (admittedly at this stage hypothetical) second round polls by a fairly steady 20%. That 40% of French voters would vote fascist (up to 45% if it’s Le Pen vs Fillon, although that looks increasingly unlikely, and Fillon is not much better than Le Pen) is worrying enough. A Le Pen victory of course can’t be completely ruled out, but it’s pretty unlikely.
Francois Fillon signed a $50,000 deal with a Lebanese billionaire, Fouad Makhzoumi, to set up meetings for him with Putin
In Trumpocracy, $50,000 is insultingly small change. I’m sure he’d be criticized for being penny ante.