2024-03-16 20:24:00
Questioned by Le Parisien, Emmanuel Macron reaffirmed that he was considering “operations on the ground” in Ukraine and assured that France was preparing for “all scenarios”.
At the end of February, Emmanuel Macron made some of his allies cringe by claiming not to rule out sending ground troops to Ukraine, currently at war with Russia. A line that he defended once more this Friday March 15 to Le Parisien.
“Perhaps at some point – I don’t want it, I won’t take the initiative – it will be necessary to have operations on the ground, whatever they may be, to counter the Russian forces,” he said. he assured during his return trip from Berlin where he spoke with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk on the conflict.
“The strength of France is that we can do it,” he added, assuring that “many countries in Europe” are on the same “line”, implying the Baltic countries, the Czech Republic or even Poland.
“Let’s play on our complementarities”
Germany, for its part, continues to largely reject this idea. One of the reasons why the French president wanted to quickly go to Berlin so as to “prevent a debate on existing strategic differences”.
“They do not exist”, they insist, highlighting the differences between “strategic cultures” and the fact of “playing on complementarities”.
“Germany has a strategic culture of great caution, of non-intervention, and it keeps its distance from nuclear power. A very different model from that of France, which has nuclear weapons and has kept and strengthened an army profession”, explains the Head of State.
During this meeting, Olaf Scholz also formalized the establishment of a “new coalition of capabilities for long-range artillery” in favor of kyiv, already mentioned in Paris at the end of February by the French president.
“Don’t let yourself be intimidated”
Emmanuel Macron also affirmed that France is “preparing for all scenarios”. “It would be an error, a fault, not to do so. I am also convinced that in some of these scenarios, everyone, who can with their model, would take their responsibilities,” underlined the President of the Republic.
If he said he was ready to discuss with Vladimir Putin, because it is his “responsibility”, he assured that we should “not let ourselves be intimidated” by his “discourse of fear”.
“We are not facing a great power. Russia is a medium power with nuclear weapons, but whose GDP is much lower than that of the Europeans, lower than that of Germany, France” , recalled Emmanuel Macron.
As the Russian opposition wishes, the president has also assured that he will not congratulate the head of the Kremlin during his assured re-election this Sunday, March 17.
“The death of Alexeï Navalny and the banning of all his opponents mean that we cannot congratulate someone on an election bordered by the death of those who fought for pluralism in Russia,” a- he said.
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