PARIS (Reuters) – France said on Monday the re-election of Russian President Vladimir Putin took place amid repression, and it praised the many Russians who had peacefully protested against the election.
France also condemned “so-called elections” held in Ukrainian regions temporarily occupied by Russia as “a new breach of international law and of the United Nations Charter”, the foreign ministry said in a statement.
“France does not recognise and will never recognise the holding and the results of these so-called elections and reaffims its commitment to the sovereignty, independence, unity, and territorial integrity of Ukraine,” it said.
The country also condemned Russia’s setting up of polling booths in the separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and in Transnistria “without the consent of Georgian and Moldavian authorities”.
President Vladimir Putin won a record post-Soviet landslide in Russia’s election on Sunday, cementing his tight grip on power in a victory he said showed Moscow had been right to stand up to the West and send its troops into Ukraine.
(Reporting by Jogn Irish and Dominique Vidalon; Editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta and Bernadette Baum)
