SEVASTOPOL, July 31. /TASS/. Deputy of France’s National Assembly Thierry Mariani, who heads a delegation of French MPs to Crimea, calls on his other European colleagues to visit the peninsula and to see with their own eyes it is "not occupied, but joyful."
"What we shall say as we return: - Go and see with your own eyes," he told reporters on Sunday following a parade celebrating the Navy Day.
The politician said after the first trip to Crimea a year earlier some of the delegation members "got under repressive sanctions and lost their positions."
"Now I realize perfectly well why it happened so," he continued. "Because somebody wants to make weaker the desires of our colleagues to visit Crimea and to see the truth."
Between July 29 and 31, 2016, a delegation of French MPs led by Thierry Mariani is visiting Crimea for the second time. Like previously, Russia’s legislator Leonid Slutsky accompanies the delegation.