MOSCOW - French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius has demanded the cancellation of a trip to Crimea by a group of French MPs, head of the delegation and member of the National Assembly Thierry Mariani has said.
“A session of the Foreign Affairs Committee [of parliament] on which I work had a session at noon. The minister [of foreign affairs] came to the session of the Foreign Affairs Committee to say that he was categorically opposed to the trip that we are organizing, that he demands its cancellation, that it is a violation of international law,” Mariani said in an interview with the Russia Today TV channel on July 22.
“There was a debate – not heated but difficult – between the minister, myself and [member of the National Assembly] Jacques Myard in the course of which we simultaneously reminded the minister that we disagree with the policy of sanctions against Russia, that French MPs are free in their movements and that we will not cancel this trip,” said the French MP, a member of the opposition center-right Republicans party [formerly Union for a Popular Movement] led by former president Nicholas Sarkozy.
Mariani said that the opinion that Crimea is not part of Russia “is the position of the French Foreign Ministry.”
“This is the official position of France and the government of France but we will still go on this trip because it is not our position,” he said.
Earlier reports said that the delegation of 10 French MPs will be received by State Duma speaker Sergei Naryshkin in Moscow on July 23.
Later the same day members of the French parliament will travel to Crimea.
