Marine Le Pen Open to Defensive Aid for Ukraine but Rejects Financial Support

PARIS — French presidential hopeful Marine Le Pen is open to continue providing defensive military gear to Ukraine but is against sending money to the war-torn country.

“Given the extent of what we've done so far — which is considerable — we're saying we can't do it,” the far-right National Rally leader said on TV channel LCI Wednesday evening.

“This is not an act of hostility toward Ukraine. We can continue to train their soldiers and their armed forces, and we can continue to provide them with equipment so they can defend themselves. But financially, we can’t do it anymore,” she said.

Le Pen is leading the polls ahead of a high-stakes presidential election next spring to replace Emmanuel Macron. One of the campaign's main issues is France's increasingly strained finances, with a public deficit that could exceed 5% this year.

France's direct financial aid to Ukraine is actually quite limited but the National Rally has long been against the EU's €90 billion loan to Kyiv, which is guaranteed by the bloc's budget, fed by national contributions.

National Rally officials privately say that Ukraine will never be able to repay the EU loan and it will ultimately fall on the bloc's capitals to do so.

"You can't say, on the one hand, that there isn't a single euro … to adjust pensions for inflation, but, on the other hand, that there are billions for the net contribution to the European Union," Le Pen said.

While the National Rally is internally divided over Russia, Ukraine and NATO, Le Pen's rivals have on multiple occasions accused her party of playing into the Kremlin’s hands in order to undermine the National Rally's credibility. The media has also repeatedly asked top party figures to clarify the party's line on assistance to Kyiv.

In Wednesday evening's interview, Le Pen stressed that France under her presidency would organize a conference for peace that would bring Russia, Ukraine and other European countries such as Germany and Poland to the table. The goal, she said, is to put an end to the war.

She also pushed back against proposals made by her presidential rivals, such as former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe and MEP Raphaël Glucksmann, to protect Ukraine's skies with French fighter jets — an option Paris has also so far refused to contemplate. "That would make us co-belligerents," Le Pen told LCI.