Russian firm sues French far-right party for unpaid debt

MOSCOW: A Russian firm is suing France´s far-right National Rally (RN) party, led by Marine Le Pen, for failing to repay a multi-million euro loan, court documents revealed.

Court documents filed at the website of Moscow´s Court of Arbitration show that aviation parts company Aviazapchast is suing the RN for 639.8 million rubles ($10.1 million) loaned to the party. The party, which has struggled financially for several years, originally took out the loan with Russia´s First Czech-Russian Bank in 2014.

The debt-recovery action was filed with the Russian court in December. Le Pen´s party was notified in a letter dated December 25, and the first hearing is set for June The RN should have made a single payment of nine million euros in 2019, after interest payments.

The party´s treasurer, Wallerand de Saint Just, told AFP the party had "good relations" with its creditor Aviazapchast.

Of the loan, he said: "We are in the process of paying it back." When news first broke of the 2014 loan, it sparked speculation that the Kremlin was backing Le Pen´s party, which is a critic of Western sanctions imposed on Russia over its role in the Ukraine crisis. In March 2016, the original loan was passed on to Russian car hire firm Konti, shortly before the First Czech-Russian Bank went into administration and eventually shut down in July the same year.

State-owned Deposit Insurance Agency then indicated that the loan had been passed on to Aviazapchast in November 2016.

The RN was already in debt in its previous incarnation as the National Front, when it was led by co-founder Jean-Marie Le Pen, the father of the current leader. Marine Le Pen took over the leadership of the party in 2011.

In 2018, the French authorities withheld two million euros ($2.2 million) of public subsidies normally paid to political parties, pending an inquiry into the alleged misuse of EU funds it had received.

The French authorities are also pursuing the party to recover nearly 11.6 million euros in damages and interest over alleged fraud and the misuse of public money during the 2012 parliamentary election campaign.

Russian news site Open Media says Aviazapchast has its roots in a Soviet-era company. As well as selling Russian aircraft parts to Asia and Africa, it also sells metals for the aerospace industry to India and Syria.