The president of the National Rally group Marine Le Pen at the Assembly, May 2, 2023 (AFP/Archives/Bertrand GUAY)
Marine Le Pen is expected Wednesday afternoon at the National Assembly before the parliamentary commission of inquiry into foreign interference for a hearing which should give pride of place to Russia and a loan taken out by the former FN in 2014 .
“We said from the start that Marine Le Pen would be at the disposal of the commission of inquiry, we have not changed our minds”, explained last week the deputy RN Jean-Philippe Tanguy, also president of the commission of inquiry, considering however that “no new fact brought to light by the previous hearings justifies this hearing”.
The summoning of the unfortunate triple candidate for the presidency is at the initiative of the Macronist majority and in particular of the rapporteur of the commission of inquiry, the Renaissance deputy Constance Le Grip.
The RN’s Russian loan is at the heart of the attacks carried out by Marine Le Pen’s opponents, in the first place Emmanuel Macron, who had estimated that the far-right candidate spoke “to (her) banker when she talks about Russia”, during the debate between the two rounds of the presidential election of 2022.
Jean Luc Schaffhauser, then FN MEP, takes part in a vote at the European Parliament in Strasbourg on November 27, 2014 (AFP/Archives/FREDERICK FLORIN)
During a hearing before the commission of inquiry 15 days ago, the former FN MEP Jean-Luc Schaffhauser explained that he had been entrusted by Marine Le Pen with the negotiations so that the party concluded a loan in 2014 with Russian banks, but without “compensation” or “political pressure”.
The former MEP, who is also a consultant, explained that after the refusal of “all the Western banks” to grant a loan to the National Front, “we could only find on the Chinese side, Iran, or the Russia: Marine Le Pen considered Russia to be the best”.
A loan of 9.4 million euros was finally concluded in 2014 with a Czech-Russian bank, whose debt was taken over by various companies following cascading bankruptcies, which are still being reimbursed.
– Confusing negotiator –
Claiming to be a “great connoisseur of Russia”, supporter of a “Christian Europe to the Urals”, member of Opus Dei, supporter of Bashar El-Assad but destroyer of the United States and Protestantism ” based on money”, Mr. Schaffhauser had sometimes confused the members of the commission, in the first place Mr. Tanguy, anxious to emphasize that the convictions of his interlocutor were “in opposition” to those of the National Front which became National Rally.
The president of the National Rally group Marine Le Pen (g), sits next to RN deputy Jean-Philippe Tanguy (d) at the National Assembly, in Paris, on March 13, 2023 (AFP / Ludovic MARIN)
Jean-Luc Schaffhauser had also admitted during his hearing that he had met Vladimir Poutine, “but in a professional context, not as an elected official”, while also arguing, in the course of another answer, that “it is obvious that if the power in place (Vladimir Putin, editor’s note) was against it, the deal (of the loan) would not have been done”.
Did the negotiation of this loan generate demands for political compensation? “Obviously not,” however, insisted the emissary, saying that “if (he) had felt political pressure, we would have found another solution”.
And, when he was asked about the “chance” between “Marine Le Pen’s position in favor of the Russian annexation of Crimea and, a few weeks later, the fact that there was a loan which comes true”, Mr. Schaffhauser had evaded by arguing that Ms. Le Pen “knew his story”.
The commission of inquiry had been launched by the RN group in the Assembly at the end of 2022, precisely to try to cut short the accusations making the far-right party an agent of Russian influence in France. The other camps denounce a “diversion” of the National Rally.
For the hearing of Ms. Le Pen, scheduled for 2:00 p.m., Jean-Philippe Tanguy will delegate the chairmanship of the commission, probably to MoDem deputy Laurent Esquenet-Goxes, one of the vice-presidents of the commission.
The floor will be given to all members of the committee and, time permitting, to two deputies representing the Communist and Liot (independent) groups.
The report of the commission must be written on May 26 and its conclusions officially presented in early June.
© 2023 AFP
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