The Kremlin has interpreted the victory of Marine Le Pen's far-right nationalist National Rally (RN) and its allies in the first round of the parliamentary election in France as a clear sign of the will of the voters.
"We are certainly following the election very closely. What
we saw in a number of European countries earlier, including
France, these trends are being confirmed," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Monday.
"I guess we will wait for the second round, even though
it’s pretty clear to us what French voters want," Peskov added.
In the past, National Rally has been repeatedly accused of having close ties to the Kremlin.
In 2014, what was then the National Front party, rebranded National Rally in 2018, took out a multimillion-dollar loan from a Russian bank. Le Pen has called Crimea, which was illegally annexed by Moscow that same year, a Russian territory.
In a report to the French parliament from last year, it was also noted that party officials had travelled to Crimea and the Donbass region, which was already occupied by Russian forces at that time, before the outbreak of the Ukraine war.
National Rally is divided on whether the Russian war against Ukraine should be condemned.
