By Rishikesh Kumar
Sputnik News
September 22, 2022
Paris has joined the EU's policy of slapping increasingly harsher sanctions on Russia over its special military operation in Ukraine. The sanctions have already backfired, resulting in the stopping of a key Russian gas pipeline and, as a consequence, surging gas and electricity prices in Europe, as well as pushing up already-high inflation.
Leader of the National Rally party Marine Le Pen has denounced France's decision to slap new sanctions against Russia this year, calling it poor judgment on Paris' part in conditions of surging energy prices.
She argued that the government got carried away by EU's hysteria around the conflict in Ukraine and slapped "inappropriate and reckless" sanctions against Russia.
Le Pen further suggested that the current crisis with electricity prices is a direct result of Paris' decision to abandon nuclear power, which the country took after a disaster at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant in Japan caused by a tsunami.
France, in line with several other European countries such as Germany, gradually closed its nuclear power plants, declaring a course for green energy generation while largely relying on gas in the transitional period.
A major part of that gas was sold to Europe by Russia, but the shipments dropped after western sanctions disrupted turbine maintenance for the Nord Stream pipeline. Russian gas giant, Gazprom said that it was unable to return the turbines from maintenance abroad due to sanctions and was forced to stop pumping gas in September this year.
The rapid reduction of shipments, alongside the thwarted launch of Nord Stream 2 equally due to the EU's anti-Russia policy, and a general shortage of gas production in the world led to a rapid surge of the blue fuel's prices. That, in turn, forced energy bills to skyrocket for Europeans and local manufacturers. Overall inflation in EU countries has also grown following the introduction of anti-Russia sanctions, the ban on the purchase of Russian oil and the disruption of logistics between Russia and western countries.
Reprinted from Sputnik News.