PARIS, June 8. /TASS/. France cannot do without dialogue with Russia and that is why the anti-Russian sanctions should go, Jean-Pierre Raffarin, the French Prime Minister from 2002 through 2005 and currently an influential senator said on Wednesday during the Senate debates on a draft resolution that stipulated a gradual scaling down of the EU sanctions against Moscow.
"France's future is inconceivable without dialogue with Russia," Raffarin said. "The text of the resolution is well-balanced and that’s why I’ll vote for it."
Earlier, the document got endorsement by Senate’s influential commission for external affairs and defense. Its members expressed regret over the worsening of relations between Brussels and Moscow and called a return to a trustworthy and durable rapport a necessary condition for strategic partnership in the solution of common problems.
Special emphasis was made on the resumption of contacts and the elimination of obstacles to the inter-parliamentary and political dialogue.
The initiators of the resolution recommended that the government call on France’s European partners to lift personal sanctions, which the EU imposed on separate members of Russian parliament.
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