At the head of the Russian Federation without interruption since December 31, 1999, with the exception of 2008 to 2012 when he assisted Dmitri Medvedev, Vladimir Putin met three Presidents of the French Republic before the election of Emmanuel Macron in 2017. And all was not always very rosy between the head of the Kremlin and the various tenants of the Élysée. Everyone still remembers Nicolas Sarkozy who appeared sounded at a press conference in 2007 on the sidelines of the G8 taking place in Moscow. In a documentary broadcast in 2016 on France 2, entitled The Putin Mystery, journalist Nicolas Hénin reports on a particularly difficult interview for the newly elected president. Wishing to discuss the files of Chechnya, a murdered journalist and the rights of homosexuals, he is then copiously humiliated. “So now, one of two things.Or else you continue in this tone and I’ll crush you. Or else you stop talking like that and you’ll see. You just became president of France but I can make you king of Europe“, would have launched him then Vladimir Putin.
A relationship that differs diametrically from that which the head of the Kremlin had before with Nicolas Sarkozy’s predecessor, Jacques Chirac. The French ambassador to Russia from 2000 to 2003, in the columns of the daily La Croix, remembers this first meeting, and the relationship of trust which was established thereafter between the two heads of state. “Vladimir Putin played the role of the young politician who came to seek advice from a man he wanted to know how he had lasted so long at the top“, explains Claude Blanchemaison who adds: “Jacques Chirac lent himself to the game with good grace. They have established relationships of trust and esteem that have been consolidated over time.“. In 2019, the Russian president told the FinancialTimes, that Jacques Chirac was the Western leader he most admired. He was hailing at the time a “true intellectual, a professor, a level-headed and interesting man“.
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