For a variety of reasons, the imprisoned Russian opposition leader believes France is “near” to his heart and that he felt he could address the French people.

Alexey Navalny, a jailed Kremlin critic, has urged French citizens to vote for incumbent President Emmanuel Macron in the presidential election, accusing his far-right rival Marine Le Pen’s party of having ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Navalny stated that he will “root for France” in Sunday’s second round of voting between Macron and Le Pen, who has previously backed Putin.

“It’s odd that a Russian political prisoner is speaking to French voters… In a long Twitter thread on Wednesday, Navalny wrote, “I surely, without hesitation, recommend the people of France to vote for @EmmanuelMacron on April 24.”

Navalny also expressed his surprise at Le Pen’s party receiving a $9.8 million loan from “Putin’s renowned money-laundering enterprise,” the First Czech-Russian Bank.

“I don’t doubt for a second that conversations and transactions with these people contained a dark political component,” Navalny, 45, added. “This is bribery.” This is a way for Putin to profit from his political clout.”

He stated that France was “near” to his heart and that he believed he could speak to the French for a variety of reasons.
“I’m in jail because of a criminal complaint filed by a French company,” he explained, referring to Yves Rocher, a French cosmetics company.  Navalny was found guilty of defrauding the Russian subsidiary of Yves Rocher by a Russian court in 2014, a decision that was later deemed “arbitrary” by the European Court of Human Rights.

He was given a three-and-a-half-year suspended sentence, but was ordered to serve time in prison in 2021.

Navalny tweeted, “I will root for France, the French, and @EmmanuelMacron.”