Misattributed
A tweet which was quickly deleted from Russian news website Lifenews, titled “Moscow will help Le Pen win the elections”, led to rumors of Kremlin support for Front National’s presidential candidate Marine Le Pen on the day of her visit to Russia on March 24th. However, whilst this website supports Russian President Putin, it is not an official body as was believed by many members of the public. Moreover, the link provided in the tweet directs us instead to an opinion column written by a political scientist, entitled “Le Pen is scared of no one”.
(Translation: ‘This Kremlin tweet was deleted in 5 minutes. Word for word it says that “Moscow will help Le Pen to win the elections.”)
The deleted tweet however still figures on another Twitter account that belongs to Lifenews.
The article related to this deleted tweet is an opinion column by the political scientist Dmitri Rodionov, as indicated by the word “Мнения”, which means “opinions”. The author explains that the Front National candidate is not afraid to come to Russia, “despite the anti-Russian climate in the European Union”, but never mentions any help from Russia to Marine Le Pen.
Lifenews is not a state-run media outlet. It belongs to the News Media organization and was founded by Ashot Gabrelyanov. He, however, does support Putin, and the Gabrelyanov family – influential in many sectors in Russia – has expressed its support for the Russian president several times.
Lifenews deleted this tweet several hours before the cancellation of an alert by the press agency Interfax according to which the Kremlin was announcing the financing of Le Pen’s campaign by Russian banks. This alert, published after a press meeting given by Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov, was replaced by another in which Dmitri Peskov was confirming that the question of financing the National Front candidate had not been brought up during her meeting with Putin.
The alert cancelled by Interfax
The new alert published by Interfax
In February, the French foreign minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault, denounced the interference of Russia in the French presidential campaign. Yet, Putin insisted during Le Pen’s visit that Russia “would/will not influence the elections.”
