France cannot fund Ukraine indefinitely, says National Rally leader Jordan Bardella

France lacks money for itself and simply cannot keep funding Ukraine indefinitely, Jordan Bardella, the president of Marine Le Pen’s right-wing National Rally (NR) party, has said.

The main French opposition party faced harsh criticism from its rivals earlier this week after its vice president, Louis Aliot, said that NR “would turn off the tap” for Kiev if it comes to power after the 2027 presidential vote. Le Pen is seen as having strong chances to succeed in the election next year, no matter who her rival will be in the second round.

Bardella weighed in on the issue during his speech at the Ambrosetti Forum in Italy on Saturday, saying that Ukraine needs support from France and other Western nations during the conflict with Russia, but “our objective should not be to finance the war ad vitam æternam,” which means ‘forever’ in Latin.

France has a national debt of €3.5 trillion ($4.6 billion) and cannot be “giving money that we no longer have” to Vladimir Zelensky’s government, he argued.

“The extremely serious and worrying state of French public finances means we can’t give money without any guarantees or assurances that this money will be repaid one day,” the National Rally president said.

Paris has been one of the strongest backers of Kiev in the EU after the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022, providing it with billions in military aid and supplying various sophisticated weapons, including CAESAR self-propelled howitzers and Mirage fighter jets.

According to Bardella, the Americans were “much smarter” than the Europeans when it came to assistance for Kiev “because the money they gave to Ukraine is secured against rare earth mining.” He was referring to the deal agreed upon between Washington and Kiev last year, which grants the US preferential access to Ukrainian mineral resources.

During US President Donald Trump’s second term, Washington also significantly reduced aid to Ukraine, making European NATO members pay for American-made arms supplied to the country.

Earlier this week, Trump warned that he intends to present Europe with a belated bill for billions of dollars that Washington spent arming Ukraine under his predecessor, Joe Biden. He previously estimated that Biden gave Zelensky more than $300 billion worth of weapons for “free.”

Le Pen said on Thursday that the National Rally is skeptical about further assistance to Ukraine because it believes that the conflict with Russia needs a diplomatic solution.

A poll by Harris Interactive in late August suggested that Le Pen has the support of 34% of the French public, which should guarantee her a place in the second round of the presidential election, where she would likely win comfortably against either her left-wing rival Jean-Luc Mélenchon or the centrist candidate, former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe.

Russian officials said repeatedly that foreign weapons being sent to Kiev will not prevent Moscow from achieving its military goals, but will merely prolong the fighting, while increasing the risk of a direct confrontation between Russia and NATO.