Russia, fracture line between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen

After looking to play the mediators between Moscow and kyiv, the President is now in the leading to the negotiation of Russian sanctions, while the NRN candidate, assumes without much complex its proximity to Vladimir Putin.

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It is rare that international news finds such an echo in a French election. The invasion of Ukraine by Russia, initiated on February 24, will have hit the presidential campaign and placed the question of relations with Vladimir Putin at the heart of the second round debates. While the war is back in Europe, the subject has become a fracture line between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen.

The conflict delayed the entry into campaign of the Head of State. Before as after the triggering of hostilities, Emmanuel Macron sought, in vain until now, to play the mediators between Moscow and kyiv. His voluntarism was first rather well perceived by public opinion, before showing his limits, as the fights were prolonged.

For Mr. Macron, the dialogue with the Kremlin remains justified by the desire to find a war out of the war and to restore the European security order, grounded by the Ukrainian conflict. Nevertheless, telephone conversations with Vladimir Putin have interrupted in the between-tours, because of the Elysée, the discovery of the atrocities committed against civilians in the localities a time occupied by the Russian army in the kyiv region, like Bantcha. “Macron no longer interests to spend his time on the phone with Putin, while the French feel that it is useless”, observes Sébastien Maillard, the director of the Jacques Delors Institute.

“in the tradition of the V e

Rather, rather shot by the triggering of the war, France has been, since then, in the negotiation of sanctions against Moscow, since it occupies the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union. Without being left out, Paris is more discreet than Washington and London in terms of arms delivery in kyiv, while the conflict is now likely to set up the Donbass, in eastern Ukraine. Finally, if Mr. Macron Receives, unlike his American counterpart, Joe Biden, to speak of a “genocide” committed by the Russians, to the chagrin of the Ukrainian President, Volodyymr Zelensky, he denounces without hesitation the “crimes of war “. Paris even sent a team of experts, to support the surveys on this subject.

“The President of the Republic is part of the tradition of the V e Republic: valorization, that one can judge excessive, of the dialogue with the Russians, but without concession on the merits , analyzes the former ambassador Michel Ducos. It would be the big difference with Marine Le Pen: she claims in the line of the v e , but would weaken NATO, would stop help to Ukraine and fight against sanctions. “

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/Media reports.