Le Pen pledges to block troop deployment to Ukraine

The right-wing party National Rally will also prohibit Kiev from using French weaponry on Russian soil

France’s right-wing National Rally (RN) party will block potential troop deployments to Ukraine and bar Kiev from using French-supplied weaponry to strike Russian soil should it emerge victorious in the parliamentary elections and secure the office of prime minister of the country, Marine Le Pen, the former long-time leader of the party, has said.

She made the remarks on Thursday in an interview with CNN ahead of the second round of voting scheduled for Sunday. The final say on the potential deployment of French troops to Ukraine belongs to the prime minister, and the stance of President Emmanuel Macron does not actually matter in such cases, she suggested. Over the past few months, Macron has repeatedly mulled the idea, using increasingly belligerent rhetoric on the Ukrainian conflict.

“If Emmanuel Macron wants to send troops to Ukraine and the prime minister is against it, then there are no troops sent to Ukraine. The prime minister has the final say,” Le Pen stated.

Her party in power would also bar Kiev from using French-supplied weapons to conduct strikes on Russian soil, Le Pen said, arguing that the permission to do so makes Paris “co-belligerent” in the conflict.

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National Rally’s stance sharply differs from the take of most Western leaders, who had allowed their weaponry to be used for such strikes, repeatedly claiming that it had not made their countries a party to the hostilities. Moscow has repeatedly warned the collective West against supplying increasingly sophisticated weapons to Kiev, stating that Ukraine’s backers have for long been involved in the hostilities, which it sees as a “proxy war” on Russia.

Le Pen’s rhetoric appeared to be rather reserved, given the fears that her party could take drastic measures, including ceasing all support for Ukraine or even taking France out of the US-led NATO bloc altogether. Such concerns have been mounting in the EU lately, Euractiv has reported, citing several anonymous diplomats.

The RN party came out on top in the first round of France’s snap election, securing 33% of the vote. The election was called by Macron after his party suffered a crushing defeat to the RN in the European Parliament elections last month.

Macron’s centrist Ensemble bloc also fared poorly in the first round of domestic polls, coming only third, with 20%, while the second place was taken by a left-wing coalition hastily assembled ahead of the polls. In the second round, the RN is projected to win up to 280 seats of the 577-seat National Assembly.