2023-09-21 08:01:50
The leader of the RN and deputy for Pas-de-Calais Marine Le Pen (left) and the RN deputy for Moselle and treasurer of the party Kévin Pfeffer (center), at the National Assembly, October 11, 2022. THOMAS SAMSON / AFP
The National Rally (RN) has never been so happy to make an external transfer. On September 5, the party’s treasurer, Kévin Pfeffer, validated the payment of 6,088,784 euros to a Russian aeronautical company, Aviazapchast, run by ex-soldiers close to the army’s secret services. This company had, for reasons that remain unexplained to this day, taken over the RN’s debt contracted with a Moscow bank nine years ago: the famous “Russian loan”. This influx of money had saved the finances of the National Front (former name of the RN) in 2014, but greatly embarrassed Marine Le Pen at the start of 2022, when Moscow invaded Ukraine and Emmanuel Macron designated Vladimir Putin as ” the banker “ of his rival.
Repaying it was a priority for Jordan Bardella since his election as president of the RN, in November 2022, so that the Russian issue hinders as little as possible his European campaign in June 2024, for which he will lead the Lepenist list. This is done, much earlier than expected. In his initial projects, the treasurer and RN deputy for Moselle Kévin Pfeffer expected to spread it out by the launch of the 2027 presidential campaign, “without having to resort to another loan”. At the boss’s request, he took three years in advance.
Comment ? “Policy of savings, restructuring of its services, renegotiation of its contracts”, lists the National Rally. It is above all the public financing obtained thanks to the results of the 2022 legislative elections which made it possible to repay the loan in one go. This State allocation will be, until 2027, 10.2 million euros each year, double what the RN received until then. The first payment arrived in the party coffers in July, and 60% was absorbed by the immediate repayment of the loan.
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By the end of 2023, Kévin Pfeffer plans to symbolically reduce the party’s debt below 20 million euros, all owed to individuals who have subscribed to the RN’s “great national loan”, at a rate of 5%. The RN, by maintaining a reduced lifestyle, aims to completely clean up its accounts by 2027, at the rate of 5 million euros reimbursed per year.
“Ball”, “bells on the head”, “cumbersome corpse”, “political problem” : in recent months, RN executives have competed in lexical inventiveness to describe this Russian loan. “It is used as an argument by my opponents, unfairly in my opinion, and I do not intend to give any argument to my opponents”summarizes Jordan Bardella more prosaically, interviewed Wednesday September 20 on the sidelines of a trip to the North, devoted to the senatorial elections.
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