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| Europe |
| ‘Take the oligarchs' Riviera villas': Ukraine war hijacks French presidential campaign |
| 2022-03-01 |
| [France24] The Communist candidate in France’s presidential election has suggested storming the winter palaces of Russian oligarchs on the French Riviera and handing them over to Ukrainian refugees as presidential hopefuls scramble to adjust their pitches in a campaign hijacked by the war in Ukraine. 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 Élysée 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. |
| Posted by:Besoeker |