The first two parts of this investigation talked about the interaction of French politicians with the Russian intelligence services and on their “financial support” by the Kremlin, including the “patriarch” of this “unnatural friendship” from the French right-wing radicals Jean Marie Le Pen and his colleague in the “cloak and dagger brotherhood”, Jean-Luke Schaffhauser.
Now it is worth additionally highlighting the “modernity” of the right wing of the aggressor “old friends” from the “National Rally”. We have already discussed the situation when Le Pen Sr. handed over the “reins of power” in his far-right “National Front”, the current “Rally”, to his daughter Marin, while remaining the “godfather” for her “like-minded people”.
However, after the defeat of Marine Le Pen in the presidential elections of 2022, marked precisely by the scandal with Russian funding through the mediation of Schaffhauser, certain “face changes” began “on the right front”. And although both father and daughter Le Pen remain “opinion leaders” for this party, many public places have moved to “young talents”, each of which has become a separate stone in a kaleidoscope.
We have already written that, due to the extremely rich development of French statehood, the “National Rally” is essentially an anti-parliamentary party, since it unites individuals who are not satisfied with the current constitutional system of the Fifth Republic in principle – from Gaullists and royalists of various persuasions to “moderate neo-Nazis”.
With all the variety of current forms of Russian influence on French politics, the economy and the information space, it is the extreme right that today remains the cornerstone and a kind of “gateway” of the aggressor’s interest “both in Paris and on the ground” This situation continues to be investigated by the expert of the Association Professor Borys Babin.
On November 5, 2022, the “wind of change” seemed to blow over Le Pen’s “family nest” when 27-year-old Jordan Bardella scored a landslide victory over Perpignan Mayor Louis Aliot for the presidency of the “National Rally”, having received “about 85 percent of the participants in the intra-party vote”, in which no other candidates were nominated.
However, such a radical “window rejuvenation” clearly happened “for a reason”, or rather “not quite happened”. The fact is that the mentioned Louis Aliot is the common-law spouse of Marine Le Pen, and he was considered by the family clan as “the one who is guaranteed not to betray”.
However, almost at the last moment, the choice of the “new leader” was made in favor of Bardella – a young, but diligent “talking telehead” from the “National Rally”.
And here, too, “family protection” was not without, since the “new leader” has been the common-law spouse of Nolwenn Olivier for a couple of years, the granddaughter of Jean Marie Le Pen and the daughter of Marie-Caroline Le Pen, the older sister of Marine Le Pen, and of Philippe Olivie.
However, it is worth recognizing that Bardella did not start his career thanks to the niece of the well-known aunt Le Pen.
The fact is that this “young talent” was first noticed by an old ally of this family, a friend of Marine Le Pen from his student years, Frédéric Chatillon, who was included by the “family clan” in a number of relevant scams.
According to a number of French media such as “TF 1 Info”, it was Chatillon who for a long time considered Bardella as his puppet, since the latter was …a boy friend for his daughter, who at the same time was …the goddaughter of the same Le Pen Sr.
However, it is obvious that Bardella eventually exchanged “at a favorable rate” both “goddaughter for granddaughter”, and Chatillon himself, who has close ties with Hezbollah and the Syrian Assad regime, for the “inner circle” of Le Pen.
This political puppet has already become famous for a number of anti-Muslim statements and public adherence to the conspiracy “replacement theory” disproved by demographers, according to which allegedly “the process of replacing the white population of France, as well as all of Europe as a whole, by representatives of peoples that are currently atypical for Europe” is carried out within the framework of a certain “elite conspiracy”.
However, Bardella managed to “stumble” into financial frauds, mainly “thanks” to Jean-François Jalkh, an old ally of the Le Pen family and a member of the European Parliament from the same “National Front” to which Bardella, at an early stage his career with the “goddaughter and granddaughter”, namely from 2015 to 2017, was recorded as an assistant.
Jalk, in its turn, “laundered” at least 320 thousand euros on such fake assistants, which the European Parliament then tried to “knock out” from him for a long time. However, Jalkh was praised in Europe “not only for this”, since, among other things, he “became famous” for denying the killing of the victims of the Nazi death camps of World War II with Zyklon B gas, as allegedly “impossible”. Also, Jalkh was long remembered for the “celebration” in 1991, together with Le Pen Sr., of the fortieth anniversary of the death of Pétain – the leader of the French collaborators.
However, the arrival of Bardella to the “vacant post” of the head of the “National Rally” by “coincidence” was connected with “new turbulence”. At the beginning of the same November, the same scandal with the “Russian loans” of the “National Rally” was revived in France, however, already in new, even brighter and in many parts – green tones.
In these days of 2022, Julien Bayou, a member of the French parliament from the Euroecologists – Green Party (EELV), sent a six-page report to the office of the Paris prosecutor regarding the financing of the “National Rally”from the Kremlin, as the basis for an exhaustive investigation.
The key circumstance for writing the document was the statements of the former French ambassador to Moscow, Jean-Maurice Ripert, on the channel “La Chaîne Info” on September 18, according to which “when I was [in office], well, just no one knew [here there was ex-ambassador’s sarcasm] that a certain number of French men and women politicians arrived from a certain direction and did not leave empty-handed; this story is well known”.
But now, when the bloody stains on the Kremlin gifts are very difficult to wash off, Ambassador Reper, brought into great diplomacy by the cabinets of the French socialists, friends of the Kremlin in a “different format”, boasts of such “common knowledge” of political corruption. However, while he was in office in Moscow until 2017, the diplomat “for some reason” did not speak out on these issues.
Therefore, Bayou also investigated this story, which we have already described, “instead of Reper”, proving that at the end of 2020 the “National Rally’s” debt to Russian banks was about 8.15 million euros.
But it is unlikely that the Le Pen family should have been worried about this, since, as Bayou proved, the “Rally” received a deferment in paying this debt until 2028, and it was granted thanks, “surprisingly”, to the decision of the Russian court.
The EELV MP stated that “the situation creates a real imbalance between the parties, who must repay their debts quickly, in accordance with French law, and those who must “submit” to the arbitration of a much more favorable decision of the Russian court … and are subject to the Kremlin”.
It is noteworthy that in addition to the well-known and once described adventures in Russia and in the Russian-occupied Crimea of the criminal Thierry Mariani, Bayou describes the journey of the aforementioned Philippe Olivier to the World Cup final in Russia, paid for by the “inviting party”.
However, for Bayou’s report it was enough to collect information from open sources. As early as October 27, 2022, the material “France: Putin’s Networks” was published, and then both “Politics” and “The HuffPost” were “walked” about Olivier’s “Kremlin connections”.
In particular, journalist Romain Herreros mentions Olivier’s illegal visit to the occupied Crimea in July 2020, as well as his trip to Russia in the summer of 2018, mentioned above, to the World Cup final, in which the French team played and won; Among other things, the match was attended by President Emmanuel Macron.
As it turned out from Olivier’s e-mail correspondence, read by investigative journalists “Complément d’enquête”, his trip to Moscow was sponsored by the sanctioned oligarch Konstantin Malofeev, who has extreme chauvinistic views. Note that Olivier came to visit him together with his wife, the above-mentioned “mother-in-law” of the current “main right-wing Frenchman” Bardella, Marie-Caroline Le Pen.
However, from the events of the World Cup it is worth moving back to the occupied Crimea, where in June 2020 the Kremlin criminally brought a whole bunch of “European figures”, among which were five deputies of the European Parliament from France – Thierry Mariani, Virginie Joron, Lacapelle Jean-Lin, Herve Claude Jouvin and the mentioned Philippe Olivier.
This was clearly the main “backbone” of the illegal “observation” of the fake “voting to change the constitution of Russia” in the occupied Yalta and Simferopol, since the rest of the aggressor’s propaganda extras were even “thinner”, such as the former member of the Central Electoral Commission of Bulgaria Martin Raikov and the former deputy Swedish Parliament Erik Almqvist.
Not surprisingly, the mentioned representatives of the extreme right political group “Identity and Democracy” of the European Parliament, both the mentioned Olivier and Joron with Jean-Lin fell under Ukrainian sanctions imposed by Presidential Decree No. 109/2021 in March 2021.
But it is worth noting that after the imposition of sanctions, Olivier “and comrades” threatened to complain to the EU leadership; as this Malofeev’s “friend” loudly stated, “I will ask the leadership of the European Parliament to protest,” but predictably, everything ended in nothing.
There is also a tragicomic element in this criminal visit. When Olivier arrived in Moscow in June 2020, the “namesake” of this person with the Russian tax number 772836313797 was registered there that same month.
Well, then this “namesake” became the “founder” of the illegal “firm” “RD Fooding” with “an authorized capital of 300 thousand rubles” together with Diebault Jonathan Nathanael, who contributed a third of the amount. This “company”, among the “types of activity” of which “ice cream trade” was indicated, was “registered” illegally by the aggressor in April 2021 in Russia-occupied Yalta, at the address “Lenin embankment, house 18/20, room 24”.
However, against the backdrop of the scandals and revelations described above in Paris, Olivier’s inconspicuous Yalta “ice cream shop” began to be “liquidated” from November 2022 due to “inaccurate data entered”. What exactly and how did the Kremlin’s “friends” of Olivier want to pass through this “firm” – land, real estate, some kind of “credit” remains a question that, of course, should be asked to the European parliamentarian himself.
We must add that many journalists have already written the news that “Philippe Olivier was chosen by Russian media mogul Konstantin Malofeev to participate in a confidential project called AltIntern”, the purpose of which is to create a “union of European far right”, after a public investigation since November 2022.
They cite Olivier’s email to Malofeev stating that “the great encounters that we have been able to make thanks to you will be of decisive use for the next European elections. We will now work on our side to give them all the developments that the cause needs.”
But will this “case” be limited to the anti-Ukrainian votes of the “friend of two dames de cœur” and a clear connoisseur of the “Yalta ice cream” Bardella and deputies of the French parliament close to him, as it happened on September 15 last year, or will this destructive activity acquire a larger and more “tasty” scope for the Kremlin – we will find out in the later parts of our investigation, where there will be a place for nuclear energy and neo-colonialism also.
