Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has thrown his support behind French President Emmanuel Macron days ahead of Sunday’s French presidential runoff election.
The jailed Putin critic urged French voters to cast their votes for Macron while simultaneously attacking the incumbent’s rival, far-right leader Marine Le Pen, for having overly close ties with Russian authorities.
“A Russian political prisoner addressing the voters of France is quite ironic,” Navalny wrote in a series of tweets Wednesday. “I certainly, without hesitation, urge the people of France to vote for @EmmanuelMacron on April 24.”
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Navalny, who was imprisoned last year when he returned to Russia from Germany, referenced a 9 million euro loan that Le Pen’s National Rally party, formerly known as the National Front, received in 2014 from the First Czech-Russian Bank, a point of contention in her campaign amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Though the loan was closed in 2016, the party is in the process of paying it off, according to Agence France-Presse.
“Believe me, this was not just a ‘shady deal.’ This bank is Putin’s notorious money-laundering outfit,” Navalny wrote. “I don’t doubt for a minute that negotiations with these people and deals with them included a shadowy political part as well. This is corruption.”
Navalny went on to say that any “conservative” who is sympathetic to Russian President Vladimir Putin is “actually just a hypocrite with no conscience.”
1/16A Russian political prisoner addressing the voters of France is quite ironic. But technically, I’m in jail due to a criminal complaint by a French company; I studied ?? at university and wear a scarf whenever I come to Paris. France is close to my heart, so I’ll give it a try
— Alexey Navalny (@navalny) April 20, 2022
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has maintained a more neutral stance in the French election, noting that while he has disagreed with Le Pen in the past, their relationship could change if she acknowledged that “she has made a mistake.”
“While I do not think that I have the right to influence what happens in your country, I want to say I have a relationship with Emmanuel Macron, and I would not want to lose that,” Zelensky told French television station BFM, as reported by France 24.
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Macron sought to cast Le Pen as a Russian sympathizer, given her party’s financial ties to a Russian bank at Wednesday’s presidential debate. Despite the far-right leader denouncing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Macron suggested that Le Pen would be incapable of defending Russian interests.
“I am a totally free woman,” Le Pen responded, according to Reuters.
