What Lies Behind French Conservatives’ Love of Putin?

By CELESTINE BOHLEN

PARIS — It is not too hard to explain the love affair between the Kremlin and the National Front, the far-right party in France. They share positions on a wide range of issues — national sovereignty (for), the European Union (against), Russia’s annexation of Crimea (for) and an American role in Europe (against).

There is also the noteworthy fact that the National Front received a 9 million euro loan, about $10.1 million at current exchange rates, in 2014 from the Moscow-based First Czech Russian Bank, now defunct, which had ties to the Russian elite.

That makes for a cozy relationship, not unlike the Kremlin’s rapport with other far-right groups across Europe.

More difficult to explain is the infatuation among members of France’s mainstream conservative party not just with Russia, but specifically with its leader, Vladimir V. Putin.

Here is a paean by Nicolas Sarkozy, the former French president who isangling for a comeback and battling for the nomination of his conservative party, the Republicans, in next year’s presidential elections: “I am not one of his intimates but I confess to appreciating his frankness, his calm, his authority. And then he is so Russian!”

The praise in Mr. Sarkozy’s book, “France for Life,” did not end there. He added that he could detect in Mr. Putin the same “Russian soul” shared by Tolstoy, Gogol and Dostoyevsky.

Fascination with the “Russian soul” has a long history in France. In the Soviet era, Moscow was a source of inspiration, and influence, among members of the French left.

This has been amplified by a vigorous, well-funded effort by Russia to woo the French political elite and Russian émigré groups, as described in a recent book, “The Kremlin’s Networks in France,” by Cécile Vaissié, a French university professor.

The book details the Kremlin’s sponsorship of organizations, conferences, blogs and media outlets that support its policies.

“The Russian effort works best on issues that already have traction in France,” Ms. Vaissié said in an interview. “They are feeding a certain distrust in the European Union, in American imperialism and in representative government, generally.”

One example was a nonbinding resolution in the French Parliament that called for a lifting of European Union sanctions against Russia, adopted on a 55-to-44 vote last April at a sparsely attended session of the 577-member body.

That vote — which has had no influence on French government policy but was widely reported in the Russian news media — was “incontestably” the work of parliamentary deputies who have been assiduously courted by the Kremlin, Ms. Vaissié said.

The Russian message, which blames Washington for the crisis in Ukraine, has found an audience in those French political circles where anti-Americanism is never far below the surface.

“When French politicians speak warmly about Russia, that gives them an opening to talk badly about the United States,” said Thomas Gomart, director of the French Institute of International Relations.

Once known as Sarko l’Américain because of his pro-Washington views, Mr. Sarkozy now says his first foreign policy initiative, if re-elected, will be to go to Moscow. Earlier criticisms of Russia’s human rights violations have been dropped from his 2016 playbook.

“He is trying to outflank the hard right,” said François Heisbourg, a French foreign policy analyst. “It is political opportunism writ large.”

Among other center-right politicians, some have detected a strong whiff of admiration for Mr. Putin’s strongman image, one bolstered by Russia’s aggressive use of force in Syria.

But in Mr. Gomart’s view, Russia is playing a long game, bolstering the National Front and dividing the center right to sow discord in a major European democracy and gain influence in the next government.

Ms. Vaissié said the Russian effort had a double purpose. It both echoes back to Russia as a European endorsement of Kremlin strategies, and it undermines French faith in a European Union, now in crisis.

“It is a P.R. coup,” she said. “It has had no impact on policy, but it feeds a negative opinion of Europe that exists in France already.”

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