Christophe de Margerie’s last act as chief executive officer of Total SA (FP) left no room for doubt about his feelings toward Vladimir Putin’s Russia . In a Moscow speech hours before the plane crash that took his life two days ago, De Margerie said U.S. and European Union sanctions on the country were “unfair and unproductive,” and that he opposed efforts to render it “isolated from the major global economic and political process.” Appearing before a receptive audience that included Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and a host of Russian executives, he cited his work as co-chair of a Franco-Russian business body alongside Gennady Timchenko — a commodities billionaire who was one of the first targets of U.S. sanctions. De Margerie’s death removes from the scene a businessman who rarely shied away from geopolitical debates and became one of Russia’s most outspoken allies in its efforts to avoid economic […]