The National Rally has fully repaid its “Russian loan”

The National Rally (RN) has repaid its entire “Russian loan”, franceinfo learned Tuesday September 19 from the party, confirming information from Le Figaro. The party has paid off its entire Russian loan, i.e. 6,088,784 euros.

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“It’s a relief for Jordan Bardella who will go into the campaign free of that”, assures the RN deputy Kévin Pfeffer, also treasurer of the party. By repaying this loan, the head of the RN list for the European elections intends to repel suspicions of alignment with the “Russian discourse”. This loan, at the heart of the attacks carried out by the adversaries of Marine Le Pen’s party, was taken out in 2014 with a Czech-Russian bank by the former National Front, then led by the three-time presidential candidate. Since 2016 and the bankruptcy of the Czech-Russian bank First Czech Russian Bank, the RN loan was entirely in the hands of a Russian company, Aviazapchast.

The RN helped by its results in the legislative elections

“This early repayment was made possible by the policy of savings, restructuring of its services, renegotiation of its contracts carried out for several years by the RN, by the results of the legislative elections of June 2022 and the concomitant increase in the subsidy annual state meeting at the National Gathering”, indicates Tuesday September 19 the party in a press release. To repay this “Russian loan”, the RN has in fact drawn from the public allocation of 10.1 million euros received this summer for its results in the 2022 legislative elections.

In its press release, the National Rally specifies “that this loan had been taken out to finance his political activities and to ensure his participation in the elections” face “to the refusals of all European banks, first and foremost the French banks, to grant him a loan at that time”. The opportunity for the party to reiterate its wish to see the creation of a “bank of democracy” to help parties notably finance their electoral campaigns. Several requests from French banks to obtain a loan of 4 million euros for the European elections have been made, details the RN, “without positive response”, “For now”.