Marine Le Pen, president of the RN group of deputies, will go on May 24 before the Assembly's committee of inquiry into foreign interference, for a hearing that should give pride of place to Russia and a loan contracted in 2014.
The candidate of the National Rally in the last three presidential elections will be heard on May 24 at 14 p.m. according to a statement from the Assembly. "We said from the beginning that Marine Le Pen would be at the disposal of the commission of inquiry, we have not changed our mind," RN deputy Jean-Philippe Tanguy, also president of the commission of inquiry, told AFP on Tuesday.
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"No new facts (...) does not justify this hearing'
However, he explained that he would delegate the chairmanship of the committee for the duration of this hearing, probably to MoDem MP Laurent Esquenet-Goxes, one of the vice-presidents of the committee. The floor will be given to all the members of the committee and, if time permits, to two deputies representing the communist and Liot groups, absent from this committee of inquiry, according to Jean-Philippe Tanguy. "No new fact brought to light by the previous hearings justifies this hearing," requested by the Macronist majority, however, said the RN deputy.
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On 4 May, Jean-Luc Schaffhauser, a former FN MEP (now RN), explained that he had been charged by Marine Le Pen with negotiations for the party to conclude a loan with Russian banks in 2014, but without "counterpart" or "political pressure". The former MEP, who is also a consultant, explained that after the refusal of "all Western banks" to grant a loan to the National Front, "we could only find on the Chinese side, Iran, or Russia: Marine Le Pen considered that Russia was the best".
A €9.4 million loan was finally concluded in 2014 with a Czech-Russian bank, whose claim was taken over by various companies following cascading bankruptcies, still in the process of being repaid. This loan should largely animate the debates on May 24. The commission of inquiry into foreign interference was launched by the RN in an attempt to cut short accusations that the far-right party is an agent of Russian influence in France. Several RN officials have already been interviewed. The hearings could, however, stop there for this committee because of the timing. Its report is due to be drafted on 26 May and its conclusions officially presented in early June.
