He is one of three men who broke into the Poutine clan’s town of Biarritz last weekend. Pierre Haffner, well known in the Basque Country for having been one of the figures of the yellow vests, active in particular during the G7 organized in August 2019. With two other activists, including Sergei Saveliev, a political opponent who has taken refuge in France since October 2021, they mattered welcome Ukrainian refugees in this villa, with a bird’s eye view of the ocean. A wishful thinking, since Monday, they were all three arrested by the police. Released and when they will soon receive a reminder of the law, Pierre Haffner evokes this “necessary act” at the microphone of France Bleu Pays Basque.
France Bleu Pays Basque Why this action?
Peter Haffner: There are millions of Ukrainian refugees arriving, they are women and children and these people must be welcomed. Here we have a castle that was built by their killers, by their attackers, and moreover with mafia money. An empty castle bought with money that Putin stole from St. Petersburg. What is the French government waiting for to requisition these properties and to house people? There is also Lioudmila Poutine’s villa in Anglet. Families can be accommodated there. The French government can do what the British, Spanish or American governments do. Seize the assets of the oligarchs. We are not going to house 4 million refugees, but those who will be there will be fine, perhaps a few dozen families.
Who were the other two people with you?
The second, who is called Slavik, came here in 2019 after being imprisoned in Russia. And the third, Sergei, arrived in October 2020. He served five years in prison in Saratov. He is a computer scientist and he had to classify the torture videos. He arrived after stealing 200 Gb from torture documents on a hard drive […] And in Biarritz, we had a symbol this weekend. We had men who denounced the tortures of the Putin regime in his mansion, in his castle in Biarritz. Men who wanted to find a concrete solution, and the police who stormed this mafia building to arrest the whistleblowers of the tortured population.
Apart from the symbol..?
It is a symbolic gesture, of course, but today there is a war. World War III broke out. So we have to take our side. Today is the bombings in Ukraine. But it started a long time ago, in a hybrid form, it is information, secret services, terrorists, influence peddling in the private and public spheres. At the international level, the message has found a reach. On Ukrainian television, in Germany, in newspapers, in Guardian, and in several newspapers throughout France. We wanted to get this message across, raise awareness as much as possible and as many people as possible. Emmanuel Macron is against the current and is being dragged into this affair. France does not play a leading role in stopping Russian neo-imperialism, because that is what it is all about, a revengeful neo-imperialism that wants to rebuild the Empire. “Euskal Herria ez da salgai” (the Basque Country is not for sale) that we can hear recurrently in recent months, this also applies to the Russian oligarchs. Especially in this period.
– Stephane Garcia