The “France-Russia friendship group” has become cumbersome. The friendship groups, there are almost for all countries and bring together MPs from all sides to forge links with elected officials from other nations. It is not political support for a foreign regime but rather cultural initiatives, informal exchanges. We call it parliamentary diplomacy.
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Since February 24, a great malaise has even taken hold of the eighty-three deputies who sit in this group. How to dialogue with their Duma counterparts in Moscow when the latter support a bloody war? “Now it is touchy”, agrees a member of the majority.
For the moment, no one really imagines deleting this group. franceinfo was able to consult the minutes of the last meeting of the office of the Assembly, where the group presidents raised this thorny question. The criteria for having a friendship group were recalled: having a parliament, an embassy in France and being a member of the UN. Russia ticks all the boxes… As long as this group is not political support, why treat Russia differently from Yemen or China?
The problem is perhaps the name “friendship group”. Normally, being president of a friendship group gives visibility in parliament and in the media. Which deputy, of which political family, would like to be decked out currently with the title of “president of the France-Russia friendship group”? How will public opinion and especially its voters understand it? During the previous legislature, the president of the group, LREM Caroline Janvier had ended up stepping back.
“The word friendship can be confusing“, recognizes the communist André Chassaigne who recalls that it is a group of friendship between elected representatives of the people.This is not the France-friendship groupCheese fries“, adds a National Rally deputy…
The future of the group will be decided in the coming weeks. One of the solutions would be to degrade the group’s status: it would go from “friendship group” to “international study group”, a category where we find North Korea, Libya or even the Syria. A way to keep ties while preparing for the aftermath…