Marine Le Pen during questions to the government at the end of May 2020. – Jacques Witt / SIPA
Relative good news … Russian justice published on Sunday the details of the “rescheduling” of the repayment of the loan contracted by the French far-right party National gathering (RN), the subject of an amicable agreement concluded with its creditor on Wednesday.
According to a document published by the Moscow Arbitration Court, the RN will have to pay a million euros within five days of the court’s confirmation of this agreement, which took place on June 3. He will then have to pay nearly € 390,000 before September 20, then more than € 8 million by the end of 2028, following a program in installments of € 322,000 every three months.
A debt assigned and then sold
The Russian creditor thus renounces to receive the whole sum at once but also to touch the fines provided for the non-repayment of the loan originally planned in September 2019. The interest rates on the loan remain fixed at 6 % annual, according to this document.
The RN confirmed on Thursday that it had obtained a “rescheduling” for the repayment of the loan following an “amicable agreement” with its creditor, the Russian company Aviazaptchast, which was suing the far-right party for not -reimbursement of nearly 9 million euros. This loan was originally taken out in 2014 with a Russian bank, the First Czech-Russian Bank (FCBR), which closed in 2016.
The claim was sold to a Russian car rental company, Conti, and then sold to Aviazaptchast, a firm run by former Russian military personnel and specializing in aircraft spare parts, which had therefore sued the RN.
Suspicions and accusations
At the time, the revelation of this loan had raised suspicions about the Kremlin’s desire to support the party of Marine Le Pen, which criticizes the Western sanctions imposed on Moscow because of the Ukrainian crisis. To justify turning to a Russian financial institution, the FN (now RN) accused the French banks of not granting it loans. This rescheduling could relieve the French party, which has accumulated losses since 2012 and is very much in debt.
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