My dad (who passed away 4 years ago) was a high-ranking member of the French Military. I still speak from time to time to an ex-colleague of his, friend of the family, who checks on my mom (in a home victim of Alzheimer).

The ‘French take on Russia’s interference with their own presidential election is this: they obviously favor Marine Le Pen but don’t believe she can win. (She still polls at 38% only on the crucial second round.) So they favored Fillon, whose foreign policies were more pro-Russian. However, a recent scandal about giving away fake jobs to his wife & sons appear to have torpedoes his chances. So the Russian trolling / propaganda machine is heavily attacking the next likely winner, Centrist Emmanuel Macron, to the degree that President Hollande has issued a number of orders to torpedo such attacks. Overall, however, they have been rather unsuccessful in moving public opinion or indeed having any effect other n than on the fringes. The French media especially appears less easy to manipulate than the US media.

On Trump, my dad’s friend said that the so-called informed opinion here is that in the last few years, Trump’s business empire has been used in a big way to launder money for the Russian kleptocrats friends of Putin. And it is that money that has kept him afloat. The danger to Trump is here, not as much in the recent election tampering business. (I wonder, is it illegal in the US to launder money for foreign kleptocrats?)

I was wondering if anyone here had seen or read any type of articles in the press or on the net mentioning this?