"He arrived in Moscow not like the French president but like the little NATO and European Union telegrapher, which (earned) him a cold reception that no one escaped", declared on Europe 1 the far-right presidential candidate.

It took up a formulation used by the socialist François Mitterrand in 1980 against his opponent and president at the time, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing.

The French candidate, who had been received during the previous presidential campaign by Vladimir Putin and continues to repay a loan of around 9 million euros to a Russian creditor, also judged that certain remarks by Mr. Macron were "a lie which was immediately contradicted by the Kremlin".

Emmanuel Macron assured Tuesday that he had "obtained", during his discussions on Monday with Vladimir Putin, "that there is no deterioration or escalation" in the Russian-Western crisis linked to Ukraine.

The Russian president had estimated, without mentioning an agreement, that "some of the ideas" of Mr. Macron could "lay the foundations for common progress".

Marine Le Pen again invoked unwritten commitments made by NATO to Moscow in the years 1990-91 during the reunification of Germany, by which NATO had undertaken not to bring into its within the countries "bordering Russia" so that "there are no military positions on the Russian border", according to her.

"By wanting to bring Ukraine into NATO, there is a breach of this unwritten agreement and therefore Russia is massing its troops on the Ukrainian border", justified Ms. Le Pen, who wants France to leave the command. member of NATO and considers the sanctions against Moscow to be "uninteresting".

The presence of tens of thousands of Russian troops on the Ukrainian border has Westerners fearing an invasion of Ukraine by Russia, which already annexed Crimea in 2014 and has supported separatists at war with Ukrainian forces since the same year.

© 2022 AFP