Le Pen’s party is still paying back a loan granted by a bank in Moscow to help finance her 2017 campaign
Hesam Seyed Mousavi, April 11, 2022 Since 1965, when the French first started electing their head of state by popular vote, no sitting president had been re-elected while keeping a majority in parliament. François Mitterrand and Jacques Chirac each won a second term but had their wings clipped by an opposition government. Two weeks ago, Macron had high hopes that he would be the first to overcome this challenge, with the involuntary help of an unlikely ally: Vladimir Putin. The threat of an invasion of Ukraine, then the war itself, thrust the French president into a frantic global diplomacy effort. While the other 11 candidates in the two-round presidential election struggled to divert voters’ attention away from the tragic news in eastern Europe, Macron, ever the statesman, spent his time with his G7 and Nato partners. The media were duly briefed on his calls with Moscow and Kyiv. For him, there was no need to campaign. The only campaign that se