MOSCOW, March 24. /TASS/. France has ceased to be a fully sovereign nation, leader of the French National Front political Party, Marine Le Pen, said at a meeting of Russia’s State Duma (lower house of parliament) International Affairs Committee on Friday.

"The fact is that at the moment the problem we are facing can be summed up in the following way: France has ceased to be a fully sovereign country," she said.

According to Le Pen, this stems from the fact that France has "delegated some of its powers, at least those concerning trade negotiations and diplomatic functions, to the European Union. "The EU is behaving like an opponent of the idea, which we are upholding in our policy," she stressed.

"I hope France will regain its sovereignty, and there will be no reasons whatsoever to prevent resumption of the Russian-French relations so that they could reach the cruise speed necessary for their development," the politician stated.

"It is no secret to any of you that I am trying to fight for France to regain its sovereignty, freedom and a harmonious and strategically sound foreign policy that was once defended by Charles de Gaulle in relations with the outside world," Le Pen noted. "I mean that France will play a special role historically typical of it in the diplomatic arena. France will regain its special path, which has always helped it resolve conflicts and maintain ties between the world’s great powers and reconcile them when tensions between them arose," she added.

"This is my battle, this is my strategy. I dare to hope that Donald Trump’s win will accelerate this process and make it simpler. The world is changing, the world is moving and reinvigorating itself. In this world, the nations that should play the roles historically assigned to them are returning to their roles," Le Pen concluded.