‘Take oligarchs’ Riviera villas’: Ukraine war hijacks French presidential campaign

The Communist nominee in France’s April presidential election has suggested storming Russian oligarchs’ winter palaces on the French Riviera and handing them over to Ukrainian refugees as candidates scramble to adjust their pitches in a campaign hijacked by the war in Ukraine.

The Ukrainian flag and anti-Putin messages painted on the gate of a villa belonging to the Russian president’s former wife in Anglet, near Biarritz, on February 27, 2022

With the first round of France’s presidential election less than six weeks away, a lacklustre campaign already overshadowed by the lingering Covid-19 pandemic has been thrown further off course by Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

Foreign policy is typically a sideshow in French presidential campaigns, but Europe’s biggest military invasion since World War II has left France’s presidential hopefuls with no option but to venture into geopolitics and test their credentials as future commanders-in-chief.

With a few notable exceptions, candidates for the Elysée Palace have scrambled to adjust their schedules, swapping campaign events for pro-Ukraine rallies and attempting to clarify – or rectify – past comments on Russia’s president.

Fabien Roussel, the Communist Party candidate best known for his defence of French beef, has come up with perhaps the most eye-catching proposal: requisitioning the Russian elite’s luxury possessions on the French Riviera.

"Russian oligarchs close to Putin own numerous billionaires' villas on the Côte d'Azur. I propose that the state requisitions them to welcome refugees from Ukraine," the head of the Communist Party posted on his Twitter feed on Saturday. He also called on all French towns and villages to take in at least one or two Ukrainian families displaced by Putin’s war.

Putin sympathisers on the backfoot

Roussel is one of several left-wing candidates polling in the low-single digits in the run-up to the election. They include Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo, the struggling Socialist candidate, whose campaign rally in Bordeaux on Saturday was almost entirely focused on the war in Ukraine.

Hidalgo’s team had originally envisaged a festive event, installing a large screen for the crowd to watch France’s Six Nations rugby match against Scotland. Instead, the stage was decked in the blue-and-yellow flag of Ukraine, while Hidalgo’s speech was rewritten from start to finish.

Appearing on stage with a young Ukrainian girl, the Socialist nominee called for steeper sanctions against Russia and urged the European Union to launch a fast-track membership process for Kyiv. She also lambasted rivals accused of sympathising with Putin’s Russia – in a tactic mirrored by other mainstream candidates.

On the right of the political spectrum, conservative candidate Valérie Pécresse said those “who defended” the Russian leader in the past were “now discredited to govern France”. The jab was aimed at far-right pundit Eric Zemmour, who has frequently expressed his admiration for Putin’s nationalist pitch, and National Rally leader Marine Le Pen, who famously paid Putin a visit during the 2017 presidential campaign.

Quizzed on the matter at the weekend, Le Pen said the invasion of Ukraine had “partly changed [her] opinion of Putin”, accusing the Russian leader of “crossing a red line”. Like Zemmour, however, she warned against imposing crippling sanctions on Russia, which she said would hurt the French public too.

Macron’s ‘bow and arrow’

Even before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, galloping inflation had pushed the cost of living to the top of French voters’ concerns – forcing President Emmanuel Macron’s government to take urgent measures to shore up citizens’ purchasing power.

The war in Ukraine has allowed Macron, who is yet to declare his candidacy, to remain above the fray and make use of his presidential prerogatives. However, it has also complicated the matter of how and when he should declare his re-election bid, with just days to go before a March 4 deadline.

On Saturday, Macron made a brief visit at France’s annual farming fair in Paris – traditionally a can’t-miss event for incumbent presidents and challengers alike. He warned that the conflict in Ukraine “will last” and “we must prepare to face the consequences”.

One candidate certain to skip the agricultural fair was leftist firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who has refused to alter his campaign over the war in eastern Europe. Touring the Indian Ocean island of La Réunion at the weekend, Mélenchon said: “In a democracy, we don’t just stop because Russia has invaded Ukraine.”

Like Zemmour and Le Pen, Mélenchon has faced a barrage of criticism since the start of Russia’s military offensive, with critics rounding on his recent remarks that NATO had provoked Putin with plans to “annex Ukraine”.

While criticising the Kremlin’s “unbearable” attack on Ukraine, Mélenchon stuck to his “non-aligned” pitch on Sunday, stressing that France should steer clear of the tussle between Russia and the US-led Atlantic alliance. He also slammed the French government’s decision to send defensive military equipment to Ukraine, urging Macron to press for a ceasefire instead of “gesticulating like a little boy with bow and arrows”.