Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky backed his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron in Sunday’s elections and urged his rival, far-right Representative Marine Le Pen to “acknowledge his mistake” in backing Vladimir Putin.
“I have a relationship with Emmanuel Macron and I didn’t want to lose it. If the candidate understands that she was wrong, our relationship can change. But, as head of state, I know that today I have Do not have the right to influence what is happening in your country”, the president said this Wednesday (20) in an interview with the French broadcaster BFM-TV.
The speech refers to the fact that Le Pen was considered a “persona non greta” in Ukraine in January 2017 for advocating for Putin’s unilateral annexation of the Crimean peninsula in 2014.
The far-right representative is currently in a very delicate position because of his relationship with the Russian government, which financed his last presidential campaign in 2017 through a financial institution in the amount of about 9 euros. ,
Le Pen condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which began on February 24, but defended last week that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and Moscow should “rejoin” after the end of the conflict.
In an effort to win the presidential election, the National Regroupment candidate reduced his extremist speech and managed to increase opinion polls. However, most polls show that Macron is ahead of him by about 10 percentage points for the second round. ,
