French President Emmanuel Macron will not send a message to Russian President Vladimir Putin to congratulate him for his landslide re-election on Sunday, in a vote that France and other western countries said was neither free, nor fair.
Exit polls indicate that Putin won at least 87 percent of the vote in Sunday’s election that the France and other western countries have said was not free and fair because of the imprisonment of political opponents and shutting down of the opposition.
French President Emmanuel Macron, who received congratulations from Putin when he was re-elected in April 2022, will not be doing the same.
One cannot congratulate someone for an election “lined with the death of those who fought for pluralism in Russia,” Macron said in an interview with the Parisien newspaper published Saturday.
He said the death of opposition leader Alexei Navalny in prison and Putin’s banning of all opposition made the election impossible to recognise.
"France duly notes the expected result of the presidential election," the French Foreign Ministry wrote in a statement, which said the vote was not "free, pluralist and democratic".
"The electoral process in Russia occurred in the context of an acute repression of civil society and all forms of opposition to the regime, increasing restrictions on freedom of expression and a ban on the work of independent media."
Russians all over the world, including in Paris, participated in the vote, with thousands of people waiting for hours in front of the embassy in Paris to cast a ballot.
Hundreds responded to the call of Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, to all vote at noon at polling stations, and Russian dissidents and French officials later gathered at Trocadero, calling out anti-Putin slogans and calling for the withdrawal of troops from Ukraine.
Russain Foreign Affairs spokesperson Maria Zakharova said that those who voted at embassies in Paris and elsewhere were not opposition supporters.
“They came to cast their vote, taking advantage of the opportunity that, despite all the threats of the West,” she wrote on Telegram.
Putin said the victory sends a message to the West, and shows that he had been right stand up to the West and send its troops into Ukraine.
Speaking to reporters in Moscow after his victory, he said that France “could play a role” in finding peace with Ukraine, after he was asked about Macron’s comments last month in which he could not rule out deploying ground troops to Ukraine in the future.
“All is not lost yet," said Putin.
"I've been saying it over and over again and I'll say it again. We are for peace talks, but not just because the enemy is running out of bullets.”
(with Reuters)
