Last month, a delegation of 10 French members of parliament, mainly from the center-right main opposition party Les Républicains visited Russia and Crimea in a trip destined to “understand how the population really lives” and fight “disinformation from Western media.” The visit was organized, and apparently funded, by the “Russian Foundation for Peace,” an organization headed by Leonid Slutsky, a Duma member of the ultra-nationalist LDPR, Vladimir Zhirinovsky’s party. Slutsky, who has been sanctioned by the E.U. and U.S., praised the visit as “the largest delegation of Western politicians and parliamentarians since the “Crimean Spring.”
In France, the trip caused controversy. It was condemned by the French Foreign Minister, who said he was “shocked,” while the National Assembly tried to prevent the MPs from undertaking the journey. Even the chairman of the France-Russia “friendship group” at the National Assembly, the socialist Chantal Guitted, indicated in a press release “this kind of initiative is contrary to republican traditions and harm the action of French diplomacy.”
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