Ukraine: Green MP Julien Bayou curbs a Sarkozy “bought by Russia”


Europe 1 with AFP // Photo credit: Amaury Cornu / Hans Lucas / Hans Lucas via AFP
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11:35 a.m., August 17, 2023

Former President Nicolas Sarkozy, who pleads in Le Figaro for a “neutral” Ukraine and a referendum to “endorse” the annexation of Crimea, commits “a terrible mistake” and “must be considered a Russian influencer”, said Thursday the ecologist MP Julien Bayou. “Lunar” and “shocking”: the river interview of the former head of state, prior to the publication of a new volume of his memoirs, flabbergasted Julien Bayou, who estimated on LCI that ” a former president shouldn’t say that.”

Cumbersome ties with Russia

But “we understand it better when we know that it is bought by the Russians”, he added, recalling on several occasions the links between Nicolas Sarkozy and a Russian insurance company, subject since 2021 of an investigation. from the national financial prosecutor’s office for possible “influence peddling” and “crime or misdemeanor laundering”. By taking “the opposite of the French position on the annexation of Crimea” and by “sweeping away the war crimes of which the Russians and (Vladimir) Putin are accused”, the ex-president is committing “a terrible fault “, insisted Julien Bayou.

For him, Nicolas Sarkozy “should no longer be considered as a former President of the Republic but as a Russian influencer”, in the same way as his former Prime Minister François Fillon, who for his part was paid by Russian giants of the energy. “It’s not just anyone, not freelance consultants,” noted the ecologist deputy, also referring to the links between Moscow and Marine Le Pen – who benefited from a loan from a Czech-Russian bank – and denouncing a “grip of the elites by Russia, which is a poison for our democracy”.

Nicolas Sarkozy has “no perspective”

The statements of the former head of state also reacted to his former collaborator Jérôme Poirot, who was his adviser at Bercy then deputy to his intelligence coordinator at the Elysée and who castigated “shameful remarks”, always on LCI. Nicolas Sarkozy “has no perspective on what happened” or “on what he did” during his mandate, he observed, stressing that his intervention in 2008 against membership of NATO Ukraine and Georgia had not prevented Russia from invading this Caucasian country a few months later.

When the former president explains that he was right because he “knew



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