Elsa Vidal is responsible for RFI's Russian editorial staff.
She has just published
Russian Fascination.
French politics: thirty years of complacency towards Russia
, published by Éditions Robert Laffont.
To discover
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LE FIGARO.
- Where does the French fascination with Russia come from?
Elsa VIDAL.
-
First of all, anti-Americanism, which has never really been questioned.
There is a sense of resentment among the French at having been saved twice by the Americans.
But there is also a particular affinity for Russia, this empire that does not want to die.
While the French Empire was dismantled twice, the Russian Empire was reborn from its ashes twice: with the Bolsheviks then with Vladimir Putin.
The cult of the strong man and vertical power also nourishes nostalgia for a fantasized France.
She explains this permanent game of mirrors between Paris and Moscow.
I would add a certain resentment from the French army, which has suffered numerous budget cuts in recent decades and has had to…
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