Published March 15, 2024
What came over Emmanuel Macron to turn him from appeaser to warmonger in the matter of Russia and Ukraine?
That – crudely put – is the question being asked in chancelleries across Europe, as the French president warms to his new role as the continent’s resister-in-chief to Vladimir Putin.
Certain countries – the Baltics, Poland – welcome President Macron’s apparent conversion to their “realistic” assessment of the Moscow threat.
Others – notably Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Germany – are aghast at this new-found va-t-en-guerre (gung-ho) French spirit.
All are confused and uncertain. How genuine is the new Macron line? Is his recent refusal to rule out sending troops to Ukraine just another of his surprises – testimony to his insatiable need to cut a diplomatic dash?
And how much of his new positioning is purely politics?
European elections are approaching, and the hard-right of Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella looks set to trounce the Macronites.
So is Emmanuel Macron using Ukraine to create a fault line between his side and the opposition, setting a contrast between his own lucid belligerence and Ms Le Pen’s turbid complicity with Moscow in the past?
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SOURCE: www.bbc.com
RELATED: Macron warns Europe’s security ‘at stake’ after uproar over Ukraine ground troops comment
Published March 15, 2024
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SOURCE: www.france24.com
RELATED: Hawkish Macron refuses to back down on possibility of Western troops in Ukraine
The French president refused to set limits on a response to Moscow in a TV interview meant to win over the public to his strategy.
Published March 15, 2024
French President Emmanuel Macron doubled down on refusing to rule out sending troops to Ukraine during a 30-minute, prime-time television interview on Thursday in which he once again presented the war in Ukraine as an existential threat.
“If Russia were to win, the lives of French people would change,” Macron said. “We would no longer have security in Europe.”
The interview, aimed at shifting French public opinion in favor of his strategy of strategic ambiguity, began with reporters from French broadcasters TF1 and France 2 asking Macron to clarify his statements from February in which he refused to rule out sending Western ground troops to Ukraine. The comments caused an uproar both at home and abroad, and prompted France’s top NATO partners, including the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany, to clarify that they would not be sending troops.
