Thread: Le Pen Party Needs Cash, Could Turn to Russia Again

Money, and how to get it, has dogged French far-right presidential contender Marine Le Pen for years.

Now, as her National Front party’s treasurer says it’s looking “everywhere” for the 20 million euros ($21 million) needed to fund upcoming campaigns, she may be looking to Russia for cash — again.

While foreign donations to French political parties are barred, loans are not. But it’s still a daring prospect for a party whose finances have drawn unwanted scrutiny.

Investigations, a trial

Alleged funding irregularities have prompted multiple legal investigations and an impending trial for several party officials and associates. Also, a 2014 loan from a Russian bank raised concerns over Moscow’s potential influence on French democracy. Not to mention the U.S. decision this week to impose sanctions and expel Russians over alleged cyber-meddling in the U.S. presidential election.

The French National Front says it’s the target of a smear campaign, and notes that other candidates have also had financial troubles.

Le Pen’s firm rejection of foreign influence would make fishing for finances outside French waters a no-go, were it not for her Russia-friendly stance and what party officials say is the refusal of French banks to lend money to the anti-immigration National Front.

Funds are needed to finance campaigning for the April-May presidential vote and June parliamentary elections. Party officials deny recent reports that they have received a new loan from a Russian establishment, but no one is denying that the party may be asking for one.

“We are looking everywhere. We are working discreetly,” party treasurer Wallerand de Saint Just told The Associated Press. They’re not ruling out funding requests from sources including Russia, the United Arab Emirates, or even the United States, he said.

Moscow may be called

The party borrowed 9 million euros in 2014 from the small First Czech Russian Bank, but the bank’s license was revoked this year, Saint Just said. Other Russian banks might consider a new loan.

Moscow has courted far-right parties in Europe in an influence-building campaign as friction between Russia and the West has mounted over Ukraine and the Syrian civil war. Some leaders like Le Pen have hobnobbed in Moscow and at embassy events at home. Chieftains of Hungary’s anti-Semitic Jobbik and Austria’s Freedom Party also have made the trip.

In a shifting of views in Russia’s favor, some mainstream politicians, from France’s conservative Francois Fillon, a top presidential contender, to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, are sympathetic to a friendly approach to Moscow.

There is concern now that any new effort to tap Russian banks for loans could do just that, however, by making France vulnerable to influence from the Kremlin.

Le Pen Party Needs Cash, Could Turn to Russia Again

Cool

...I've always wondered... who gets to decide who is and who isn't "far right"? The media seem to keep using this term all the time, and I wonder what their source is?

The media use the term to describe anybody they don't approve of as far right.

Originally Posted by CaptainNemo

who gets to decide who is and who isn't "far right"?

The definition hasn't changed much over the last 200 years...

Originally Posted by stroller

Originally Posted by CaptainNemo

who gets to decide who is and who isn't "far right"?

The definition hasn't changed much over the last 200 years...

So is the media then saying that the people it calls this are "The [extreme] nobility, members of the Second Estate, [who] generally s[i]t to the right. In the successive legislative assemblies, monarchists who [extremely] support... the Ancien Régime [are] commonly referred to as rightists because they s[i]t on the right side."?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-...litics#History

I didn't realise that all those skin-heads were part of the aristocracy - well I never!

...and who gets to decide who is called this then? Is there a committee somewhere? A pub? A village hall? Or is it someone sat knitting in a corner somewhere?

Do you spend a lot of time wondering is gravity is a media invention?

^^
Try this:

Far-right politics are right-wing politics further on the right of the left-right spectrum than the standard political right.
Far-right politics often involve a focus on tradition, real or imagined, as opposed to policies and customs that are regarded as reflective of modernism. Many far-right ideologies have a disregard or disdain for egalitarianism, if not overt support for social hierarchy, elements of social conservatism and opposition to most forms of liberalism and socialism.

Originally Posted by Humbert

Do you spend a lot of time wondering is gravity is a media invention?

gravity is a myth - the earth sucks

Originally Posted by Humbert

Do you spend a lot of time wondering is gravity is a media invention?

I can test gravity; I can't test fantasy.

Hmm..., so maybe LePen is a liberal democrat?

Can't trust the "rightwing" label invented by the PC elitist media to lie to the people.
The National Front party couldn't possibly be "far-right".

Originally Posted by stroller

^^
Try this:

Far-right politics are right-wing politics further on the right of the left-right spectrum than the standard political right.
Far-right politics often involve a focus on tradition, real or imagined, as opposed to policies and customs that are regarded as reflective of modernism. Many far-right ideologies have a disregard or disdain for egalitarianism, if not overt support for social hierarchy, elements of social conservatism and opposition to most forms of liberalism and socialism.

When does that definition date from? 200 years ago was (2017 - 200 = 1817).
So looking at around that time, it says:

However, following the Restoration in 1814–1815, political clubs were again formed. The majority ultraroyalists chose to sit on the right. The "constitutionals" sat in the centre while independents sat on the left. The terms extreme right and extreme left, as well as centre-right and centre-left, came to be used to describe the nuances of ideology of different sections of the assembly.[8]

&

The terms "left" and "right" were not used to refer to political ideology but only to seating in the legislature. After 1848, the main opposing camps were the "democratic socialists" and the "reactionaries" who used red and white flags to identify their party affiliation.[9]

So that says a different thing from what you said.
That says it didn't mean anything to do with political ideology 202 years ago; or (2017 - 1848 = 169) 169 years ago.
But you said that it hasn't changed in meaning for 200 years? I wonder who is right? Or are you both right, but one of you is extremely right?

With the establishment of the Third Republic in 1871, the terms were adopted by political parties: the Republican Left, the Centre Right, and the Centre Left (1871) and the Extreme Left (1876) and Radical Left (1881). The beliefs of the group called the Radical Left were actually closer to the Centre Left than the beliefs of those called the Extreme Left.[10]

Ah, here we go, 1871 (2017 - 1871 = 146) 146 years ago, they start using the terms for political party names, and...

Beginning in the early twentieth century the terms Left and Right came to be associated with specific political ideologies and were used to describe citizens' political beliefs, gradually replacing the terms "reds" and "the reaction".

Ideology by about 100-120 years ago?

Those on the Left often called themselves "republicans", while those on the Right often called themselves "conservatives". The words Left and Right were at first used by their opponents as slurs. By 1914

Ah, 1914... so that's (2017 - 1914 = 103) 103 years ago.

the left half of the legislature in France was composed of Unified Socialists, Republican Socialists and Socialist Radicals, while the parties that were called "Left" now sat on the right side. The use of the words Left and Right spread from France to other countries, and came to be applied to a large number of political parties world-wide, which often differed in their political beliefs.

That's confusing... the Left sitting on the Right? Next they'll be calling National Socialists "right-wing"! <chortle> ...oh wait!

In British politics the terms 'Right' and 'Left' came into common use for the first time in the late 1930s in debates over the Spanish Civil War

So it sounds like 1936-1939 maybe? so that's (2017 - 1939 = 78) 78 years ago... hmmm...
but hang on, nobody is saying clearly what right and left means...

The Scottish sociologist Robert M. MacIver noted in The Web of Government (1947):

The right is always the party sector associated with the interests of the upper or dominant classes, the left the sector expressive of the lower economic or social classes, and the centre that of the middle classes. Historically this criterion seems acceptable. The conservative right has defended entrenched prerogatives, privileges and powers; the left has attacked them. The right has been more favorable to the aristocratic position, to the hierarchy of birth or of wealth; the left has fought for the equalization of advantage or of opportunity, for the claims of the less advantaged. Defense and attack have met, under democratic conditions, not in the name of class but in the name of principle; but the opposing principles have broadly corresponded to the interests of the different classes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-wing_politics
Ah, here we go, 1947, someone actually says something about that... so that's 2017 - 1947 = 70) 70 years ago... but nothing about "far right" yet...
Listen to this geezer

George Orwell wrote in 1944 that "the word 'Fascism' is almost entirely meaningless ... almost any English person would accept 'bully' as a synonym for 'Fascist'"

George Orwell: What is Fascism?

Still not getting anything concrete... maybe it's something to do with this?

In the 1970s, the American New Left began using the term "politically correct"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_correctness

It sounds like something happened between WW2 and the 1970s that led to the concept of "far right" as it used today... this seems to correlate with the Baby Boomer generation - another one of their gifts to the world?

How does your answer, answer my question of who decides in medialand that such and such is "far right"?
Do you believe that that "far-right" is a meaningful academic description? Or do you think it's another word for "evil"?

Originally Posted by stroller

Hmm..., so maybe LePen is a liberal democrat?

Can't trust the "rightwing" label invented by the PC elitist media to lie to the people.
The National Front party couldn't possibly be "far-right".

I thought right-left was to do with economics... not authoritarianism - an axis that seem to cut across other ideas.

Your google skills are impressive, but seem to add to your confusion!

Certainty seems such a blessing.

Well Russia has a left wing socialist communist government, that's going to MAYBE give funds to a French political party.
What next ! Russia hacks French Internet to swing elections in France, costs Russia zero ruble to hack and swing elections.

Originally Posted by wasabi

Well Russia has a left wing socialist communist government

Who has decided on this label?

^ it's about 30 years out of date, but I remember it well.

I thought it was more a monarchy?


I guess if the hacking is proved, he might become known as Vlad the E-mailer.

You're quite right that the left-right labels are simplified, Nemo.

I find this site useful and not too complicated: https://www.politicalcompass.org/

That's quite a fantastic story unfolding in your mind, when will the book about libertarian totalism & the rise of the revolutionary conservatives come out?

Originally Posted by misskit

Le Pen Party Needs Cash, Could Turn to Russia Again

There is a rich guy in the US sympathetic to your cause who will donate Marine. Send him a tweet. "Donate to the National Front party and get to grab my pussy."

Originally Posted by stroller

That's quite a fantastic story unfolding in your mind, when will the book about libertarian totalism & the rise of the revolutionary conservatives come out?

Talking to yourself again?

Nope, it's a response to your blabbering. Try not to google so much, it's confusing your mind.