French far right wants to cut aid to Ukraine. It represents a drop in the ocean of public finances

Is "turning off the tap" of aid to Ukraine truly necessary for France's public finances? That has been the position, albeit awkwardly argued, by the Rassemblement National (RN) in recent days. Its vice president, Louis Aliot, sparked a major controversy on Thursday, September 3, by reiterating Marine Le Pen's proposal to end French support to Kyiv if she were elected president in 2027. Assailed by political rivals, who see the proposal as evidence of a pro-Russian stance, the far-right party attempted to justify its position by stressing its supposed commitment to fiscal discipline. "We stand with Ukraine, but not at the expense of France's financial health (…), of our debt and the taxes paid by the French people," RN MP Laurent Jacobelli said on Saturday. "At a time when the French are being asked to make sacrifices on pensions and healthcare, when France is on the brink of bankruptcy, we cannot put our country's future at risk." French aid to Ukraine has in fact remained quite modest when set against the scale of the challenges of the country's public finances. Since the start of the Russian invasion in 2022, Paris has provided a total of €26.2 billion, according to data collected by Germany's Kiel Institute, a global reference on the subject: