Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will address the French Parliament on Wednesday by videoconference, in line with his numerous questions to Western parliamentarians since the start of the Russian invasion of his country.
The two French chambers, the National Assembly and the Senate, will meet at 3 p.m. (2 p.m. GMT) to listen to the Ukrainian president who is expected to reiterate the communication exercise he has already provided in front of other parliamentarians from different countries. .
Volodymyr Zelensky became the world famous figure of Ukrainian resistance to the Russian invasion. Before addressing the French deputies and senators, he will have spoken in the morning at the Japanese Diet.
For several weeks, he has addressed MEPs, American, British, German, Israeli, Italian and Canadian parliamentarians, each time dressed in military technical clothing and often quoting historical figures from the country, such as Churchill or Martin Luther King, to ask for more support in the face of the Russian invasion.
This speech in France comes less than three weeks before the first round of the presidential election, for which the polls give President Emmanuel Macron the clear winner.
No less than three candidates for the Élysée, Marine Le Pen, Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, also deputies, will sit at the Palais Bourbon for the 15 minutes that the Ukrainian president’s video address is supposed to last.
Ironically, these three candidates, to which must be added the far-right polemicist Eric Zemmour, are regularly derided for their positions deemed pro-Russian.
A fourth deputy also presidential candidate, the communist Fabien Roussel, is excused because of a family bereavement. “Do not see it as a political choice,” he insisted.
At the Palais Bourbon where the Assembly sits, as at the Palais du Luxembourg, seat of the Senate, no debate will be organized after Mr. Zelensky’s message.