GETTY Links between Le Pen and Putin are beginning to concern US officials

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The National Front leader has allegedly asked for the money to bankroll her campaign to become France’s president next year from a bank which is believed to have close ties to Russian president Vladimir Putin. French media outlet Le Canard Enchaîné is reporting Le Pen’s Russian ties have prompted Mike Turner, a Republican on the House of Representatives' permanent select committee on intelligence, to urge US authorities to investigate the matter.

It's the mentality of KGB practice - you buy people and place your pawns, saying to yourself that they'll be useful at some point Cécome Vaissié

Le Pen’s party have openly admitted to taking foreign loans in the past following alleged difficulties in obtaining funding from French banks. The National Front figurehead is now believed to have turned to the First Czech Russian Bank (FCRB) in Moscow to help fund her bid to become France’s next leader. In a letter to the US Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, Turner noted the National Front party "publicly acknowledged that it had received a $9.8 million (£7.9m) loan from a Russian bank with links to the Kremlin, allegedly brokered by a sanctioned Russian Duma deputy, according to French press reporting.

Things you didn't know about Marine Le Pen Fri, May 5, 2017 Marine Le Pen is a French politician who is the president of the National Front, a national-conservative political party in France and one of its main political forces. Play slideshow AFP/Getty Images 1 of 10 Described as more democratic and republican than her nationalist father, she has led a movement of "de-demonization of the Front National" to detoxify it and soften its image