2023-09-19 17:53:00
The far-right party was in debt to the tune of more than 6 million euros due to the loan made from a Czech-Russian bank in 2014.
By Valentin Dechambre for Le Point The National Rally has paid off its entire Russian loan, amounting to more than 6 million euros. (Illustrative photo). © Vincent Isore / MAXPPP / IP3 PRESS/MAXPPP Published on 09/19/2023 at 5:53 p.m.
Objective achieved for the RN. The party has repaid its entire Russian loan, taken out in 2014 from the Czech-Russian bank First Czech Russian Bank (FCRB), according to information from the Figaro. The party has paid off its entire loan, i.e. 6,088,784 euros. The leader of the party, Jordan Bardella, had decided to repay the entire loan in one go, before the end of the year, barring exceptional expenses. However, the loan was scheduled to be repaid within the next five years.
“It’s a relief for Jordan Bardella, who is going to go on campaign free of that,” assures RN deputy Kévin Pfeffer, also treasurer of the party. By repaying this loan, the head of the RN list for the European elections intends to repel suspicions of alignment with the “Russian discourse”. A reimbursement which will not influence the life of the party, according to the RN deputy. “We will have to reconcile our budget between the functioning of the party and the European campaign,” concedes Kévin Pfeffer. But we will be able to maintain our standard of living. »
According to the treasurer of the far-right party, the increase in public funding allowed the RN to carry out such an operation. “Before 2022, our public funding was 5.2 million euros per year. Today, it is 10.2 million each year. We use the surplus of 5 million euros per year to repay our debts,” explains Kévin Pfeffer.
A sought-after French bank
Marine Le Pen had already been singled out during the debate between the two rounds of the presidential election by Emmanuel Macron, who accused her of “depending on Russian power” and said that Russia was her “banker”. In December 2022, the report of a parliamentary commission of inquiry concluded that the National Rally was a “transmission belt” of Russian power. The challenge, however, remains to find a French bank that will agree to finance the next European campaign of the National Rally. The party will certainly be able to turn to the Hungarian bank MKB, which had already financed its 2022 presidential campaign.
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