the entire French political class condemns Russia, which denies – RT in French

After the discovery of corpses of civilians in the Ukrainian city, the presidential candidates unanimously condemned Moscow. Unsubstantiated accusations, while Russia maintains that it is not responsible for these abuses.

The controversy surrounding a massacre of civilians in the Ukrainian town of Boutcha has caused a reaction from the French political class, which has proclaimed in unison its condemnation of these acts, believing that Russia was responsible for them.

The President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron, like the German and British leaders, evoked from April 3 “unbearable” images and affirmed on Twitter that “the Russian authorities will have to answer for these crimes”. Interviewed on France Inter on April 4, he was however less affirmative as to the perpetrators of the abuses: referring to “very clear indications of war crimes”, he added that it was, according to him, “almost established that it is the Russian army.

The opposition joined in this condemnation by the Head of State: according to the candidate of the National Rally Marine Le Pen, it is up to the UN to establish responsibility in this case, while “Russia, like any other country, should not rejoin the concert of nations without punishing those guilty of war crimes established by the international community”.

His competitor on the right, Eric Zemmour, took a similar position. According to the candidate of Reconquest!, “the images of the city of Boutcha reveal to the whole world the atrocities committed by the Russian army on the civilian populations”, and an investigation must be carried out in order to punish those responsible.

The candidate of the Insoumis, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, was not outdone in these convictions, describing as “pure murderous savagery” the crimes of which the Russian army is accused. “Neither forgetfulness nor forgiveness,” he added.

Interviewed on LCI on April 4, the communist candidate Fabien Roussel considered, “in the face of these horrors and these acts of torture”, that “the most important thing is that these facts are really established by the International Criminal Court”, in order to be able to sanction the responsibles.

Still on the left of the political spectrum, the ecologist Yannick Jadot spoke of “the horror at Boutcha” and reaffirmed that “[Vladimir] Putin is a dictator and a war criminal”. “The embargo is necessary to stop the atrocities,” he added, referring to the discussions at European level about a possible embargo on hydrocarbons from Russia.

While kyiv has accused Russian forces of killing several hundred civilians in this city near the capital, the Russian Ministry of Defense strongly denied these accusations on April 3, calling the images and videos provided by Ukraine “provocation”. Moscow specifies that the Russian army left Boucha on March 30 “the day after the session of talks between Russia and Ukraine in Turkey”, and that in a video message published on March 31the mayor of the city has never mentioned the death of civilians.

The Reuters agency for its part specified, on April 4, that it had not been “able to verify independently who was responsible for the death of the deceased residents”.