Valérie Pécresse sought, on Sunday March 13, to make another point of view more clearly heard in terms of France’s Ukrainian policy. The Republican presidential candidate called on the French to overtake, in the first round of the presidential election on April 10, the “legitimisite reflex” encouraged, according to her, by the Russian threat to the borders of the European Union, and in fact favorable to Emmanuel Macron.
Alex Reed of the “Grand Rendez-vous” of Europe 1, The echoes and CNewsValérie Pécresse notably mentioned a ” gap ” between the summit of European leaders in Versailles, on March 10 and 11, and the expectations of Kiev. She referred to a meeting of the European People’s Party (right) held at the same time, with Ukrainian politicians who allegedly testified that the arms deliveries promised by Brussels would not be “still not arrived”.
She defended herself from wanting to redo the recent history of Franco-Russian diplomacy, while questioning the action of the Head of State. She pointed out that the United States “had planned” l’invasion en Ukraine. “We didn’t believe it” she lamented. The world had reported, on March 4, that the various Western intelligence services had had, between the fall of 2021 and the start of the invasion, on February 24, a different reading of the signals sent by Moscow – United States and United Kingdom taking the offensive for granted, while the Europeans thought the diplomatic path was still open.
She also recalled that she had put forward the idea of a “peace conference in Europe” who would have ensured in a way ” very clear “ what “Ukraine’s entry into NATO does not[était] no news »so as to appease the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin.
Macron “too late in his awareness”
The right-wing candidate spoke regarding what she said were two ” warning signs ” of the invasion: the deployment in the Sahel of the Russian Wagner militia, “destabilize French interests”and the “migration blackmail” organized, in the summer of 2021, on the Polish border, by the President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, an ally of Vladimir Putin – Brussels had accused Minsk of having granted visas to many migrants with a view to destabilizing the Union European.
For Valérie Pécresse, the Franco-Russian dialogue has not “not supported enough” between the Macron-Putin meetings in Versailles in 2017 and at Fort Brégançon in 2019, and the year 2021, when we “felt rising hegemonic desire” of the master of the Kremlin. In short, she reproached the Head of State for having been “too late in his awareness of the dangerousness of Vladimir Putin”.
Mme Pécresse also criticized the president on domestic political issues, such as purchasing power ” at half-mast “ and the “letting go” in migration matters. “When there is a war, there is a legitimist reflex, we say to ourselves that there is a captain who is leading the operation”, she remarked, adding: “I think we shouldn’t be afraid to change captains on April 11 [au lendemain du premier tour] because I have the experience, I have a very solid government team, I have an alliance with the major parties, the major leaders of this world. » In particular, according to her, in the European Parliament and the European Commission.
