The pro-Russian enthusiasm of the "Blue Navy" deputies in the European Parliament

(BRUSSELS2) There are essentially two of them who speak, on a (very) regular basis, at meetings of the European Parliament's Foreign Affairs or Defense committees, Jean-Luc Schaffhauser and Aymeric Chauprade. Two deputies from the Front National, or rather the Rassemblement Bleu Marine, the broader label of the far-right movement in the European Parliament (*). Relatively experienced men on their subjects. The first was a consultant for Dassault and lived in Poland and Russia. The second is geopolitical scientist, sharp, and former teacher at the superior school of war (called then the Joint Defense College or CID).

A pro-Russian commitment

Their words often clash. In an assembly committed to the Ukrainian cause, where the deputies from Eastern Europe and the Baltic countries are very present, and very active, they affirm a strong and assumed pro-Russian enthusiasm. The absence of French MEPs on this Ukrainian and Russian issue is particularly glaring. Aside from MEP Arnaud Danjean, and from time to time Michèle Aliot-Marie (when she's not running to another meeting), the other French MPs really don't seem very interested in what's going on east of Europe nor, more generally, by foreign policy. Result: for the other MEPs, the voice of France seems to be, for lack of opponent, the voice of the FN. A voice that is all the more promising, as these two MEPs are rather present and active (**), and their voice seems very moderate, even if the comments made are less so.

Constructed language

At the last meeting of the defense sub-committee, at the beginning of November, just after the elections held in the eastern part of Ukraine - contrary to what the government of Kiev and a good part of the international community wanted -, Jean-Luc Schaffhauser thus holds a more nuanced, very polite statement, far from the excesses sometimes taken in public session by Marine Le Pen (or Jean-Marie Le Pen) in the past. A language, very constructed, which leads, inevitably, the one who listens to it, towards his reasoning... He has an argument, he attended as an observer, " personally he specifies clearly (the President of the European Parliament refused that these MEPs proclaim themselves "observers"), in the "elections" organized by the separatists of Luhansk and Donetsk, on the weekend of November 1, 2014.

Bombings, deaths, but no Russian trucks or tanks

Returning from "over there", the MEP thus describes " bombings. I saw schools, not all of them. I have seen hospitals attacked. I saw the will to make a population flee. It's not 3500-4000 dead, as they say, but rather 10.000 dead. There is a traumatized population he enumerates in a way that aims to be objective. " This Russian population was not initially recognized in its own identity. However, she does not feel any hatred towards the "brothers" who bombarded them.. It is rather the politicians that they implicate. » An observation that the deputy draws from interviews with various people on the street. And, during this journey, he also has this remark: “ I did not see a single truck and a single tank from Russia. It may have escaped me...but still. »

Recognize "popular" power in eastern Ukraine?

The MEP then moves on to a more political analysis, putting on the same level what is happening in the west and east of the country through an election process " toilet bag ". After the fall of Yanukovych, there was a democratic upheaval, (in Kiev), it was necessary to seek legitimacy through elections. In the East, there is a self-proclaimed power which will seek its legitimacy which it does not have. It is very wrong not to recognize this power. It will be necessary one day to get in place around the table to negotiate. Should we seek war at all costs? he wonders. A pacifist language very close to that held by certain MEPs of the United Left, even of the Greens, which is not new. Already in July, the MEP made this kind of remark, as he also reported on his twitter account.

let us support peace and not war, the worst of wars, the unjust war! Our future is the greater continental Europe

— JeanLuc Schaffhauser (@JLSchaffhauser) July 15 2014

But under cover of pacifism, it is above all a question of defending the arguments of a certain great Russia. At a time when our colleague Mediapart reveals that the Front obtained, in September, a loan of 9 million euros from the First Czech Russian Bank (FCRB), a Russian bank which is not (yet) on the blacklist of the EU, including 2 million euros have already been paid, one can wonder to what extent the pro-Russian policy of the Front is linked to this loan or is its consequence. All the more so as JL Schaffauser turns out to be one of those who negotiated this loan.

(Nicolas Gros-Verheyde)

(*) In the European Parliament, they sit in the ranks of the Non-Members, having failed to form an autonomous political group.

(**) Which denotes notably with the attitude of fairly generalized absenteeism observed during the previous legislature among the "FN" deputies.