Marine Le Pen: Who's Funding France's Far Right? Panorama

Marine Le Pen wants to be president of France. Everyone on the right is

behind her. Because she's our last chance to save the country. After

Brexit, after Trump, she wants to be the next shock to the establishment.

Marine presents herself as the new face of a patriotic mainstream, but

the toxic legacy of her father still looms large. We reveal controversial

money men working behind-the-scenes. We are talking about very radical

ideas. Such as? Anti-Semitism. It's clear. From moss toe to Trump Tower,

we speak to fixers looking for loans. Some of the people they were

there, they could have contributed $1 million without blinking an eye.

And we ask - what is the true extent of her relationship with the

Kremlin? This is a secret. Our story begins in Lyon,

traditionally a bastion of the far right in France. Marine Le Pen is

launching her bid to become president of the republic. What

would you like her to change first of all in France, if she becomes

president? To change? The first thing to change, immigration.

Riding a global wave of anti-establishment feeling, Le Pen's

popularity has surged. She could top the poll in the first round of the

election later this month. We're at home, this is our country, that's

what they're singing. Marine Le Pen wants to ditch the euro, perhaps

take France out of the EU. She's anti-Nato, Andy globalisation. But

the subjects she's most vocal on are immigration, radical Islam and what

it means to be French. Le Pen aspires to lead a patriotic

movement for the modern age. But her party, the Front National, has a

troubling past, with historic links to Nazi collaborators and violent

far-right movements. Meet the party's founder, Marine's

father, Jean-Marie Le Pen. He's a former foreign Legionnaire, a

veteran of France's colonial wars, who's been fined for racism and

Holocaust denial. Since Marine took over from her

father in 2011, she's tried to ditch the party's violent, racist image.

In her campaign videos, she's focussed on issues of social

welfare. In French, they call this makeover

de-diablolisation, casting out the devil. She's dropped the name Le Pen

from her campaign. These days she is, simply, Marine. Two years ago,

she even expelled her own father from the party. A trouble maker and

provocateur who built a political dynasty that became synonymous with

racism and anti-Semitism. Marine Le Pen has put in place this

process that she called de-diablolisation, what do you make

of that? This is the tension in the Front National, between the old

radicals and the modernisers. To win the election, Marine Le Pen knows

she needs to broaden her appeal. In the town of Frejus, on the south

coast, Front National activist, Sonia Lauvard and her group of

supporters are helping her do just that. Every Sunday morning, they

walk the local market speaking to shoppers.

Their efforts to detoxify the brand seem to be working. Marine Le Pen's

party now controls 14 town councils nationwide.

In Frejus, the local mayor is also Marine Le Pen's presidential

campaign manager. The things that people fear about

you is that you're anti-Semitic, Islamophobic.

But Le Pen's efforts to detoxify the party haven't persuaded the French

establishment. And that's left the Front National desperately short of

money. The Front National needs around 20

million euros to fund its campaigns this year alone. But because of its

racist and anti-Semitic past, French banks won't lend it money. So Marine

Le Pen's financing options are limited.

She's already had to go crawling back to her father, whose toxic

reputation she'd rather people forgot about. Recently, he arranged

a six million euro loan for the party.

Some of the other characters Marine Le Pen has turned to for money

wouldn't look out of place in a spy thriller. Frederic Chatillon, rabble

rouser turned slick businessman, whose client list has included

Bashar al-Assad and Brigitte Bardot. We spotted him at Marine Le Pen's

campaign launch. What's he doing talking to senior party figures? It

turns out, he and Marine are old friends. Here's Chatillon rallying

his supporters in the early 90s, when he was leader of a far right

student group known as GUD. It was more or less of a gang, you know. It

was just between a political movement and a street fighting gang.

At that time, they changed from a tradition Alan I Communist movement

to something more radical. So-called anti-Zionism, which, in fact, is

merely a code word for anti-Semitism.

Mr Chatillon came to the attention of French intelligence. His file

from that time lists his activities, including a Nazi salute. In this

note you can find all the meetings that Chatillon did in this time. Can

you see the Hitler salute, so Nazi salute in 90, during a meeting. You

can see that he met Leon Degrelle, which is... This is the former SS

officer? Yes, exactly. You can see that he is linked to the skinhead

movement in Paris. Today, we're told Frederic Chatillon is part of what's

been described as a secret Cabinet around Le Pen.

He's absolutely a key player - for the economy of the party, for the

networks of the party, in all these meetings I saw this man close to

Marine. This is Aymeric Chauprade. He quit the Front National after

helping two French pilots, charged with drug smuggling, escape the

Dominican Republic. Until then, he was Marine Le Pen's foreign affairs

advisor. He says he clashed with her secret cabinet. We are not talking

about conservative - class kill conservative ideas. We are talking

about very radical ideas. Such as? Anti-Semitism. It's clear. Obsessed

by the Jewish power, very anti-Semitic, very radical. Does

Marine Le Pen share those views? I don't think Marine Le Pen is

anti-Semitic. I'm not sure that Marine Le Pen is really independent

from these people. If she doesn't share their views, and she is trying

to detoxify the brand, why would she keep them around? I have absolutely

no explanation, rational explanation, because rationally

speaking, she should have fired them. Because they are very radical

people. The explanation, it seems is - follow the money. If you look

through the accounts for the Front National's campaigns, you'll find

thousands of receipts. But what's weird is that so many of them are

from just one company. It's called Riwal and its director is Frederic

Chatillon. The Front National told us Mr Chatillon is nothing to do

with the party, that Riwal is just a supplier of campaign materials:

Posters, leaflets, websites and smartphone apps. But the authorities

have been investigating. The first element of this investigation is the

role that Riwal is playing with Front National. According to French

justice, Riwal is acting like a bank.

Prosecutors say the Front National, Riwal and Frederic Chatillon have

been complicit in a mutually beneficial scam, involving fraud and

miss use of public funds. Because Marine Le Pen did not manage to get

financing from French banks, Chatillon, with his agency, Riwal,

is acting like a banker in a way. So despite the talk of

de-diablolisation - detoxification of the party - one of Le Pen's key

money men could be a man who's linked to skinheads and former

Nazis. There's no sign or anything to tell you that Mr Chatillon's

company is based in this una-assuming building on a quiet

back street. This is a company run by an old friend that's absolutely

central to the functioning of Marine Le Pen's campaigns. We wanted to ask

Mr Chatillon about all of this. We spotted him again, with a colleague,

outside the campaign launch. Monsieur, Monsieur. Not keen to

talk. Neither he nor the Front National replied to our letters

either. A bigger question, perhaps, is Le Pen's relationship with

Russia. Moscow never hid its enthusiasm for Donald Trump. Now

just weeks before the election, Marine makes a surprise visit to

Moscow. -- to the Kremlin.

She meets the man suspected of subverting the US presidential race.

Was that a smirk on Mr Putin's face? Naghemeh pens seemed not to notice.

She spoke out against the EU sanctions on Russia heat deaths

Brett Lee once lifted. -- desperately wants lifted.

Two days later Russian police broke up in opposition protest.

Up to 1000 people were detained. Nothing to do with Le Pen's visit,

but this is life in Russia under Vladimir Putin, a leader she says

she admires. Marine Le Pen's path to the Kremlin has been years in the

making. It was her father who laid the groundwork. He came here almost

immediately after the collapse of the Soviet Union and began making

contact on what was then a newly emerging nationalist right. One of

the people Jean Marie Le Pen met back then was Vladimir Zhirinovsky,

a die-hard Nationalist who once said the bells of the Russian Orthodox

Church should ring out from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean.

This really is the godfather of Russian nationalism. Many of his

ideas were far right. But there is more to this

relationship than ideology. Remember, the Front National is in

desperate need of money. In her search for funding, Marine Le Pen

has hired fixers with Russian connections. One of them calls

himself "Mr Mission Impossible". Jean-Luc Schaffhauser, a former

consultant turned MEP whose contacts range from Vatican insiders to

Russian spies. Since Putin was in charge, I was working with Russia. I

have information for France in Russia about who is who. In 2014, Mr

Schaffhauser brokered alone worth 9 million euros from a bank with links

to the Kremlin. These were turbulent times. Russia sent forces into

Crimea, then annexed the territory through a referendum. The EU

responded with sanctions, but Marine Le Pen publicly defended Moscow,

raising suspicions that the money was a quid pro quo. Did you ever

have any discussion with Marine Le Pen about Crimea and the situation

in Ukraine? No, no. In regard to the loan? I'm trying to understand if

there was any suggestion Marine Le Pen's position on Russian

politics... Deep but you have to look at the story, always look in

the story. Marine Le Pen was, and Jean Marie Le Pen before, was for

this cooperation with Russia. They don't change it. It was not

political on, it was a commercial loan. But Russia wanted to use

Marine Le Pen to legitimise their annexation of Crimea. We know this

because hackers published a text exchange apparently from the phone

of a Kremlin official to Russian MP. I have the text messages here. We

can see on the 17th of March they say, Marine Le Pen has officially

recognise the results of the Crimea referendum. That comes the answer,

she hasn't disappointed us with a smiley face. And then, we need to

find some way of demonstrating our respect to the French.

That's important. What did they mean by that?

I contacted the Russian MP in the text exchange. At first he agreed to

speak to me. But then, he stopped answering his phone. There were two

loans totalling 11 million euros. One from that bank with links to the

Kremlin, the other through an oligarch accused of helping to

finance Russia's war in eastern Ukraine. For me there is no doubt

that was authorised by Kremlin. A special operation and special

recommendation and request of those businesspeople to help Marine Le

Pen. There are in the Kremlin's hands, like instruments, just

undertaking one or another specific, specific order, specific operation.

The Kremlin told us it had nothing to do with the loans but in Russia

business and politics are intertwined. Absolutely true. Why,

if the Kremlin say "Never"... It wouldn't have happened? Yes. Without

the approval of the Kremlin, it wouldn't have happened? I think, I

think. So what is Marine Le Pen's relationship with the Kremlin? In

public, she is denied meeting Mr Putin before this recent visit to

Moscow. Here she is speaking to Newsnight just last week.

But we've heard something different, and not just from anyone. It's

Vladimir! When we met Marine's father back in February, let

something slip. To be clear, this was before the

public meeting in the Kremlin last month. Others who were close to

Marine Le Pen told us the same thing. She told me that she met

Putin, but I do not have the proof... But she told you? She told

me. But the Kremlin told us Marine Le Pen and Vladimir Putin never met

before. Someone is lying, but who, and why? I understand that she did

meet Putin. This is a secret. LAUGHTER

What can I say? Did she tell you she met Putin? All the discussion cannot

be... There are little secrets, and this secret, I don't know this

secret. Secrets are secrets. Last week it was revealed the Front

National applied for yet another Russian loan in 2016. Marine Le Pen

maintains she's never been influenced by Russian money.

But the mystery of her relationship with Putin casts a shadow over her

campaign, amid fears about the Kremlin's attempts to interfere in

elections, from Europe to the United States.

The victory of Donald Trump brought an unexpected shift in the political

landscape. A week before the inauguration, Le Pen popped up in

Trump Tower. No big deal, apparently.

But what was she doing huddled in the cafe? The visit was arranged by

this man... Guido Lombardi, friend of the European far right, also

friend of Donald Trump and his neighbour. He organised a

fundraising cocktail party for Le Pen. I spoke to him via video link.

We had between 35 and 40 guests at my apartment at Trump Tower. Some of

them were Americans, of course, from Wall Street. Some of the people that

were there, they could have contributed $1 million without even,

you know, blinking an eye. We don't know whether Mr Lombardi's friends

lent Le Pen any money, but through him Marine Le Pen now has a direct

link to the president of the United States. So I talked to Donald

personally, I took to Steve Bannon, I talked to Priebus. I told all of

them, she is coming, she is coming my place. What did Donald Trump say?

He said, oh, I like her. Donald Trump was not the cocktail party,

though we've been told Le Pen or members of her team met with friends

of Trump at a later, private meeting. But it seems Marine Le Pen

herself is still too toxic for Donald Trump. I would be the first

one to tell Donald, don't meet her. It is, the connection is still too

much, fresh. Even though she kicked the father out of the party, but it

still somehow the party her father started.

Some people, it seems, just don't buy the idea that the party of Le

Pen has really changed, and that includes some on the very extremes

of the far right. In Paris we met a group called Dissidence Francaise.

They describe themselves as white nationalists and fascists.

Can you hear that? This small group is an affiliated

with the Front National. But their slogan, our people before other

people, is borrowed word for word from one of Marine Le Pen's, from

the last presidential election. Who are you voting for and why? For

Marine, of course. Pretty much everyone on the right is behind her,

because she is our last chance to save the country. So yes, of course,

we support her. Dissidence Francaise believe there is a Zionist led

conspiracy to commit what they called White genocide, by flooding

Europe with immigrants. In an attempt to prove her point, Electre

took me to a nearby Paris neighbourhood. When you look around

here, you can barely see a white person. I mean the demographics, the

numbers were talking, they will be taking over in less than 20 years.

Europe isn't going to be white or European animal. It's not going to

look like this here. That was the language of the old Front National,

but some of Electre's views are closer to Marine's rhetoric. These

people hate us, so they can go away. It's the only solution. Do you think

Marine agrees with you on that? I think she agrees but I think she

cannot say. Maybe one day she well. The Front National says such views

have no place in the modern party, and yet Marine Le Pen apparently

gives off in a far right pheromones to attract people like Electre.

Polls suggest Le Pen will make it through the first round of the

election this month, into the second round run off in May. A movement

that was once on the fringes now stands on the cusp of power.

Even if she fails in her bid for the presidency, Marine is part of a

changing political landscape. But, for all the talk of

de-diabolisation, the Front National is still the party of Le Pen, and

the devil is in the details.