PARIS — France wants an “independent and thorough investigation” into the circumstances surrounding the death of Russian opponent figure Alexei Navalny, the country’s foreign affairs ministry said in a statement released Tuesday.
“France holds Russian authorities fully responsible for Alexei Navalny’s death,” the statement reads. The Russian ambassador in France was summoned on Monday in response to the death of Vladimir Putin’s most prominent opponent, as were other Russian envoys across Europe. “The Putin regime has shown its true colors,” French Foreign Affairs Minister Stéphane Séjourné said during a press conference.
Paris asked for the “immediate and unconditional release of all political prisoners in Russia” and shared its “deep concern about the critical state” of the health of Putin opponent Vladimir Kara-Murza, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison last summer after being accused of treason.
Navalny died Friday in a penal colony in the remote Yamal-Nenets region, near the Arctic Circle, where he had been transferred a few weeks prior. The Kremlin said accusations that it was involved in Navalny’s death, which have been made by many Western countries, are “unfounded.” Navalny’s family has not been allowed access to his body.
“In today’s Russia, free thinkers are put in Gulags and sentenced to death,” French President Emmanuel Macron said last week during a joint press conference with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Paris. The EU’s foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell has opened the door to imposing further sanctions in response to Navalny’s death.
