On Monday 1 July, the Kremlin announced that it was “following the elections in France very closely”. This statement comes the day after the first round of legislative elections, in which the Rassemblement National (RN) took the lead

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed that Russia was closely observing the electoral process in France, particularly in view of the significant score of the far right, which is often perceived as being close to Moscow. He added that, although the second round was still to come, the choices made by French voters already seemed fairly clear to Russia, despite the uncertainties surrounding the composition of the future French National Assembly.

Other Russian officials placed the French results in a wider context, taking into account the forthcoming elections in the United Kingdom and the United States, countries which are allies of Ukraine. Vyacheslav Volodin, Chairman of the State Duma, highlighted the “shattering defeats” of incumbent leaders, citing Joe Biden’s performance against Donald Trump and Macron’s party’s disappointing score in the French legislative elections.

He also said that American and French citizens have expressed their desire to see their economies grow and to find solutions to global security issues. However, several Russian officials and political scientists tempered these observations, saying they did not expect a major shift in French support for Ukraine.

Vladimir Djabarov, deputy chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, said that we should not expect relations between Paris and Moscow to improve after the parliamentary elections. Russian expert Georgi Bovt also warned against overestimating the RN’s influence on French politics, pointing out that the French president retains control over foreign policy.

Jordan Bardella, president of the RN, said he would remain vigilant in the face of “Russia’s attempts to interfere”, while defining “red lines” concerning the sending of troops to Ukraine or military equipment that could reach Russian cities.

For his part, Emmanuel Macron supports the use of Western weapons to neutralise Russian military targets used against Ukraine.