It was expected but the words will remain: President-candidate Emmanuel Macron attacked Marine Le Pen on his proximity to Russian power via the loan contracted by the National Rally from a bank close to the Kremlin.
First of all, on the Ukrainian question, Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen seemed to agree. The National Rally candidate even admitted to being in favor of all the sanctions taken against Russia, but also of the military support given to the European Union and France to Ukraine. She nevertheless expressed her disagreement “on the blocking of the import of Russian gas and oil, because it will do enormous harm to the French people (and which) would have cataclysmic repercussions”. The National Rally candidate then explained that she feared that “Russia and China will tomorrow be an economic, monetary and even military superpower which would be a danger for the West, Europe and France”. “We have to plan for the medium and long term,” she added.
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It was after his cautious tirade that Emmanuel Macron led the charge. He first explained that she had been one of the first political figures to recognize the annexation of Crimea by Russia in 2014. “You did it, because you depend on Russian power and Mr. Putin” via a bank loan (9.14 million euros Editor’s note) from the First Czech-Russian Bank (FCBR). “You talk about your banker when you talk about Russia,” he said afterwards. “You cannot defend the interests of France on this issue.”
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After a short pause, Marine Le Pen first replied that she was a free woman who had devoted her whole life to defending France. She then criticized the receptions of Vladimir Poutine by Emmanuel Macron then President of the Republic in Versailles and Brégançon. She then went back on the loan granted by the Russian bank because, she explained, no French bank had granted it.
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The two candidates then fell out on the European question. Marine Le Pen has already explained that she wants to “stay in the European Union” but modify it to bring about a “European alliance of nations”. “There are a whole series of policies of the European Union with which I disagree,” she continued, castigating free trade agreements, taking in particular the example of chickens from Brazil. “What chicken from Brazil?” Asked aloud Emmanuel Macron, explaining that France had opposed the EU agreement with Mercosur. “What you describe, it looks like a band apart,” retorted the president-candidate, accusing him of “lying about the goods”. “Europe is a condominium, we cannot decide alone to ripolin the facade,” he said. He also returned to the 2017 debate during which Marine Le Pen had expressed her desire to leave the Euro zone.