VAlerie Pécresse in the sights of the Russian secret services. As indicated The Expresswhich returns to the warrior, a biography of Valérie Pécresse written by Hubert Coudurier, a KGB spy came into contact with the Republican candidate for the 2022 presidential election during her youth, when she was an ENA intern in Moscow in 1991.
In the Russian capital, Valérie Pécresse then meets Sergei Jirnov, a man presenting himself as a journalist working for a Soviet media. To gain trust and get in touch with the one who will become minister and president of the Île-de-France region, Sergueï Jirnov pretends to want to study in France, within the ENA. But his ambitions are quite different and the one who is actually a KGB officer then wishes to collect information on foreign diplomats stationed in Moscow.
In the book, the Russian spy assures Hubert Coudurier that he succeeded at the time, filling out files about Valérie Pécresse, 24 years old at the time of the events. At the time of transmitting his reports, Sergei Jirnov affirms that his superiors “were thrilled” by his research. “I managed to fool her perfectly with my cover,” he also says, in comments taken up by the weekly.
READ ALSOPresidential: Pécresse’s strategy to counter Macron
KGB suspicions against Valérie Pécresse
Nevertheless, Valérie Pécresse still managed to install doubt in the officer, report our colleagues. Indeed, the KGB went so far as to ask whether it was “working for a competing service”, in particular the DGSE, he recalls. Finally convinced that she was not a spy, the Soviet spy then tried to flirt with her, without success.
READ ALSOValérie Pécresse’s “catch in the mud” campaign
Several years after the facts, Valérie Pécresse affirmed that she was aware of the real job of Sergei Jirnov, who then confessed to her the pot-aux-roses. The Russian spy also tried to reconnect with her when she joined the government of Nicolas Sarkozy in 2007. A request rejected by the minister’s office at the time.