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 recognize and will never recognize the holding and the results of these so-called elections, and reaffirms 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 Georgia’s separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and in Transnistria “without the consent of Georgian and Moldavian authorities”.
Putin won 87.8% of the vote, the highest ever result in Russia’s post-Soviet history, according to an exit poll by pollster the Public Opinion Foundation (FOM). The Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM) put Putin on 87%. First official results indicated the polls were accurate. The United States, Germany, the United Kingdom and other nations have said the vote was neither free nor fair due to the imprisonment of political opponents and censorship.
