Far-right leader Marine Le Pen has long tolerated, without a word, the provocations of US president Donald Trump, his insults of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and the political interference of those close to him in European elections. For the first time, on Tuesday, March 4, she twice disavowed the Trump administration, after her political rivals insisted on her de facto complicity with the US president, echoing her past complicity with Vladimir Putin.

In declarations to Le Figaro newspaper on Tuesday, she condemned the "brutality" of the withdrawal of US aid to Ukraine, refraining however from judging the substance of the decision. "Nobody can force the US to maintain its support if this country no longer wants to," said the aspiring candidate for a fourth presidential election. "But it is highly critical not to give Ukraine a reasonable period of time to figure something out."

She also distanced herself from the US vice president, JD Vance, after he mocked the hypothetical Franco-British security plan for Ukraine – "20,000 troops from some random country that hasn't fought a war in 30 or 40 years."

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