PARIS, April 17. /TASS/. The leaders of the European Union wanted to use sanctions to bring the Russian economy "to its knees" but instead they killed their own economies, Florian Philippot, leader of the French Patriots party, said.
"All Eurocrats promised to "bring the Russian economy to its knees." They killed our economy with their stupid sanctions and extremist policies!" he wrote on the social network X (formerly Twitter) noting that the growth of the Russian economy exceeds the growth the French economy five times.
The politician recalled that while the International Monetary Fund (IMF) lowered its outlook for France’s GDP growth for the current year to 0.7%, it improved the outlook for Russia from 2.6% to 3.2%. In this regard, Philippot called for the dismissal of the officials responsible for the adoption of sanctions and the lifting of restrictions imposed on Russia.
On April 16, the IMF presented a new report on the growth of world economy, in which it revised the forecast for Russian GDP growth in 2024 upwards. According to the fund's estimates, the growth rate of the Russian economy exceeds in the past and current years the same indicators of the G7 countries that have imposed sanctions against Russia. In 2023, the US GDP grew by 2.5% (expected growth in 2024 is 2.7%), France’s GDP grew by 0.9% (forecast for 2024 is 0.7%), Italy’s GDP grew by 0.9% (forecast for 2024 is 0.7% ), Japan’s GDP grew by 1.9% (forecast for 2024 is 0.9%), the UK economy grew by 0.1% (forecast for 2024 is 0.5%), Canada’s GDP grew by 1.1% (forecast for 2024 is 1.2%). In Germany, a decline of 0.3% was recorded last year, while this year the economy is expected to grow by 0.2%.