France: Far-right leader & presidential candidate Le pen vows to ally with Russia post war

French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen has said that if she wins the elections, she would engage with the Russian Federation to ensure that it doesn’t create an alliance with China. “It will be necessary diplomatically, when the war [in Ukraine] is over, when a peace treaty has been signed, to try to avoid this tie-up which risks being the largest danger of the 21st century for us,” the far-right leader said in an interview with French Public Radio. Le Pen is set to contest against incumbent Emanuel Macron on April 24 in the second round of the presidential polls.

Le Pen previously created headlines after she vowed to pull France out of NATO’s military command in case she is elected as the leader of the country. However, the French leader also clarified that she does not want France to leave the bloc and only wants the country to move out of its command structure. Notably, Le Pen also announced the plans to follow the UK in its suit to exit the EU terming the word ‘Frexit' for it.

Amidst the ongoing war, Le pen has expressed support for Ukraine saying that she values national sovereignty but he has, however, been a long-standing admirer of Russian President Vladimir Putin and has received party loans from a Russian bank, according to Politico. Meanwhile, on Monday she emphasized that an alliance between Beijing and Moscow is a “potentially great danger. “

Le Pen argued “Imagine … if we let the first producer of raw materials in the world — which is Russia — [create an alliance] with the first factory of the world — which is China — to let them perhaps constitute the first military power of the world. I believe that it’s potentially great danger."

French elections

The first round of the French presidential election took place on Sunday, April 10. In the election, 48.7 million people had the opportunity to vote for one of 12 candidates competing for the European Union's second-largest economy, according to local media. Among the 12 candidates, seven ran in the 2017 election. The top two candidates-Le Pen and Macron now advance to the second and final rounds of the election on April 24, 2022.

(Image: AP)