It is here that spacious villas linked to Katerina Tikhonova and Lyudmila Ocheretnaya—Vladimir Putin's daughter and ex-wife, respectively—are located.
Following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Pierre "occupied" Putin's daughter's villa. Today, he is a familiar sight on the streets of Biarritz, handing out self-printed leaflets explaining how he believes Russia attempts to influence French politics by leveraging Russians living in France. Pierre views such figures—representatives of businesses close to the Russian authorities, as well as current and former officials of various ranks and their relatives—as "Kremlin agents."
Pierre lived in Russia himself for a time. He recounts arriving in the country in 1992, where he started a business, worked as an entrepreneur for years, and married a Ukrainian woman—born in Kyiv—who held a Russian passport. However, after Russia's seizure of Crimea in 2014 and the invasion of the Donbas, he realized the country was heading down the wrong path.
"I met friends at protests—real heroes! And I realized these wars had to be stopped," Pierre says. "After the seizure of Crimea, I took part in demonstrations alongside Boris Nemtsov—or, for instance, Vera Lavreshina, who regularly staged protests at Lubyanka Square."
While living in Russia, Pierre periodically attended Russian opposition rallies, though doing so became increasingly dangerous with each passing year. In 2016, when Moscow activists were preparing a performance piece for "Chekist Day," the event was cut short before it could even begin; police detained all the participants—including Pierre—and loaded them into a police van. According to the Frenchman, this incident made him concerned for his safety, and the following year, he left Russia for Biarritz.
As it turned out, that city also had close ties to certain relatives of Russia's ruling elite. Notably, it was there in 2016 that Artur Ocheretny—head of the Center for the Development of Interpersonal Communications and the man whom Putin’s ex-wife Lyudmila married after their official divorce in 2013—purchased the "Suzanne" villa.
Also located in Biarritz, right next to the "Suzanne" villa, is another property: the "Altamira" villa. According to property registry records, the house was previously owned by Gennady Timchenko, a longtime friend of Putin. However, the real estate company holding the title to the mansion, Atlantic, subsequently resold the villa to billionaire Kirill Shamalov—the then-husband of Putin’s daughter, Katerina Tikhonova.
Tikhonova and Shamalov divorced in 2018, yet Putin’s former son-in-law remains part of the Russian leader’s inner circle. In 2024, the younger Shamalov became the chairman of the so-called "Ozero" cooperative, a group comprising close friends of the Russian president.
In 2022, French authorities seized Shamalov’s villa after he was placed under sanctions in connection with the war Russia launched in Ukraine. The villa belonging to Lyudmila Putina (Ocheretnaya) and her husband was seized two years later, in 2024. In March 2022, two weeks after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Pierre Haffner broke into the villa owned by the husband of one of Putin’s daughters. He explained that Shamalov had purchased the villa with "money stolen from the Russian people" and declared that "from this moment on, this house belongs to Ukraine." He proposed that French authorities turn the property into a shelter for war refugees or rent it out and donate the proceeds to a fund supporting Ukrainians.
Pierre’s proposal was not accepted, but he managed to avoid criminal charges for trespassing on private property.
"The police told me I had damaged diplomatic relations between France and Russia," Pierre says with a smile. "I believe this issue [regarding these villas] needs to be resolved decisively. But it would cause a huge scandal in Biarritz, and the local authorities don't want a scandal. They want Russian money to keep flowing in; they don't care whether it's dirty or clean."
Following the incident at Shamalov’s villa, Pierre continued to monitor the activities of Russians living in or visiting Biarritz. He emphasizes that he is not campaigning against all Russian speakers; he is interested only in those whom he describes as "agents of the GRU, FSB, and North Korea." He notes that many of these individuals are linked to the Kremlin or Russian intelligence services and believes they may be operating in France to further the Kremlin's interests.
"Putin realized that the Russian diaspora is a weapon [against France]. After all, France is the only country in Europe with nuclear weapons capable of dealing with Russia on equal terms," he observes. "Our strategic nuclear forces do not depend on the US—unlike Britain's. As for the others [EU countries], they simply lack that kind of nuclear leverage." Affner is trying to draw the attention of other Biarritz residents to "Kremlin agents"—which is precisely why he is handing out leaflets about "Russian influence" on the streets.
"I’ve handed out a thousand of them personally. And every time, I reach out to people and talk to them. Some stay silent, but others say: 'You’re right, keep going—give me a few of your leaflets, and I’ll hand them out too,'" says Pierre.
France, like the rest of the EU, currently stands with Ukraine in the war unleashed by Russia, and President Emmanuel Macron has repeatedly tried to persuade Putin to agree to peace talks and end the conflict. However, presidential elections are scheduled in France for 2027. Affner believes that as the election approaches, Russia will intensify its efforts to influence French public opinion and attempt to install a "candidate of its own"—someone who would adopt a more pro-Russian stance—at the country's helm.
"Russian propaganda is very insidious. Its battlefield is public opinion. If the government changes in France—if supporters of Jean-Luc Mélenchon [a representative of the far-left political wing who has called for withdrawal from NATO] or Marine Le Pen [far-right party] win—then our position [on foreign policy] could shift drastically," Pierre warns. "And then all our European partners would be left without our 'protection'—without our 'nuclear umbrella'." And if our people vote for "Putin's moles," then our policy will also favor Putin.
P.S. The situation in France regarding "Putin's moles" is a mirror image of the Putin-lovers in the USA: the minor а cross between a failed publishing house and a total fiasco "Russian Town" in Atlanta—a sponsor of Russian terrorism—continues its “cozy” relationship with Putin's mission in Washington. And why even speak of such small fry when the White House itself refuses to grasp that the Russian state ought to be destroyed, rather than coddled—that old "Putler-Hitler No. 2"? It is doomed to perish regardless, even if Trump himself were to try to help it!!!
FREEDOM OF SPEECH
#NEW #625_54
