The rhetoric has changed. After the Russian invasion in Ukraine, the presidential candidates Marine Le Pen, Eric Zemmour and Jean-Luc Mélenchon are criticized for their positions deemed pro-Russian and which risk being more difficult to assume in times of war. These three contenders for the Elysée have also recently condemned Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade his Ukrainian neighbor, thus distancing themselves from the master of the Kremlin. Franceinfo returns to the speeches made until then by the leaders of the RN, of Reconquest! and La France insoumise, before and after the start of this war, which began on Thursday 24 February.
The volte-face of Jean-Luc Mélenchon
The candidate of La France insoumise has defended, in the past, positions on Russia that diverge from those of the majority of candidates for the presidential election. Evidenced by this statement in the program “We are not lying” on France 2 in 2016. At the end of 2015, Vladimir Putin had decided to intervene militarily in Syria to support Bashar Al-Assad, the country’s president, on behalf of the fight against terrorism. To the question posed by the journalist Léa Salamé, “Are you in favor of the Russian bombardments in Syria?”Jean-Luc Mélenchon had answered in the affirmative, explaining that it was the solution for Vladimir Poutine “to solve the problem and eliminate Daesh”.
Since the start of the campaign, the leader of La France insoumise has multiplied ambiguous outings about the expansionist policy of Vladimir Putin. On France Interon January 3, the deputy of Bouches-du-Rhône considered Russia as “a partner”. Before adding: “I don’t agree with making an enemy of him, I don’t agree with the fact that we betrayed the word we had given to the Russian leaders.”
“We brought ten countries into NATO in the East, which was seen as a threat by Russia. We have a duty to ensure that Ukraine does not enter NATO because otherwise, it is normal for the Russians to say ‘we feel threatened’, especially when installing anti-missile missile batteries in Poland.”
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, January 3, 2022on France Inter
On the mobilization of Russian troops on the Ukrainian border, Jean-Luc Mélenchon even went further, in an interview with the World, January 18. “The Russians are mobilizing on their borders? Who wouldn’t do the same with such a neighbour, a country linked to a power that continually threatens them?“ he had launched, recalling also, on TF1that France was to be “non-aligned, which means that neither the Russians should enter Ukraine, nor the Americans should annex Ukraine into NATO”.
Positions that have radically changed since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The deputy has indeed castigated this attack in a press releasevirulently criticizing a military operation “of pure violence manifesting an immeasurable will to power”. And to add: “Russia takes responsibility for a terrible setback in history. It creates the immediate danger of a generalized conflict which threatens all of humanity.”
However, the “rebellious” continues to point to NATO’s supposed responsibility in the conflict: “If you ask me to detail the causes that have led us to this situation, then I will tell you that the stubborn refusal to discuss this NATO presence at Russia’s doorstep is the root cause of the feeling that Mr. Putin of the feeling that we are about to attack him”he said Thursday, February 24 on France 2, challenging anyone to “to prove that[il] have[t] already supported Putin”.
#Ukraine : I condemn the attack on #Putin
Find my intervention on France 2.#Russia #SpecialUkraineFrance2 pic.twitter.com/bAebPDm2V3
— Jean-Luc Melenchon (@JLMelenchon) February 25, 2022
Eric Zemmour’s failed bet
“I unreservedly condemn the Russian military intervention in Ukraine”, displayed the desk of Eric Zemmour, Thursday, during his press conference. With this explicit message, the far-right candidate sought to counter his ambiguities about a possible reversal of position as Russian tanks approached the Ukrainian border. The polemicist was still betting in December on France 2 than “Russia would not invade Ukraine”while denouncing the “propaganda” American.
During his press conference on Thursday, he conceded having “believed that Vladimir Putin would not cross this red line”. The candidate may have been deceived because of his Russophile positions and his admiration for the Russian president. “I dream of a French Poutine”he admitted in 2018 during an interview with Opinion. “I am for the Russian alliance. I think it is the ally that would be the most reliable”, he added last September on CNews. “Vladimir Putin is a Russian patriot. It is legitimate for him to defend the interests of Russia”, still estimated at the beginning of February the candidate of Reconquest! on France Inter.
“The Americans did a lot to provoke Putin.”
Eric Zemmouron France Inter
If Eric Zemmour today condemns the use of Russian force against the Ukrainians, he has not turned his back on Russia. During his press conference, he once again called for a “treaty consecrating the end of the expansion of NATO”. “We are all responsible, we must understand the Russian claims against expansion”, he said. It should be remembered that the polemicist sometimes denied the very existence of Ukraine in his writings. In his book A five-year term for nothingpublished in 2016 and which brings together his chronicles broadcast on RTL, he ensures that “Ukraine does not exist”believing that “modern Ukraine is a country of odds and ends”.
The new position of Marine Le Pen
She is one of the last candidates to have reacted to the Russian invasion in Ukraine. In a press release published Thursday mid-morning, the contender for the Elysée ensures that“no reason can justify the launching of a military operation against Ukraine by Russia which upsets the balance of peace in Europe. It must be unequivocally condemned.” And the deputy of Pas-de-Calais to insist by calling “to the immediate cessation of Russian operations in Ukraine”. A message that contrasts with the words and postures of the far-right leader who in 2011 said, for example, in the Russian newspaper Kommersant, what “admired” Vladimir Poutine.
The strongman of the Kremlin had received, at the end of March 2017, Marine Le Pen during the presidential campaign. The RN candidate spoke on this occasion about the sanctions imposed on Russia in the context of the Ukrainian conflict after the annexation of Crimea in 2014. The tone was then quite different from that used today.
“We do not believe in a diplomacy of threats, sanctions or in a diplomacy of blackmail which the European Union, unfortunately, applies more and more against the Russian Federation and against its own members.”
Marine Le Penin 2017, during a meeting with Vladimir Putin
She also reiterated her “point of view on Ukraine which coincides with that of Russia”repeating its desire to have the sanctions lifted. The world recalls that in January 2017, she believed that “Crimea was never Ukrainian”, in an interview with a Russian newspaper.
At the end of January 2022, in Madrid, during a rally with allied parties, Marine Le Pen had refused to validate a paragraph on Ukraine in a joint declaration with her partners. The text stated that “Russia’s military actions on Europe’s eastern border have brought us to the brink of war” and called for “solidarity” in front of “such threats”. In early February, the RN candidate did not believe “not at all” to a Russian offensive in Ukraine.
Asked Friday about BFM TV about her links with Russia, and in particular on the Russian loan of 9 million euros obtained in 2014 by the RN, Marine Le Pen vigorously defended herself from being any relay of Putin’s power in France. “I was one of the only political leaders to try to keep an equidistance between the United States and Russia (…) The simple fact of keeping this equidistance leads to this accusation”retorted the candidate, lambasting these political leaders “extremely dependent on the American vision”.