“TMaybe at some point – I don’t want to, I won’t take the initiative – we have to have operations on the ground, whatever they may be, to counter the Russian forces”, said Macron in an interview with Le Parisien on Friday – released today by the publication French – on his return from Berlin, where he met with the German and Polish leaders.
“France’s strength is that we are able to do this,” he added.
In the German capital, Emmanuel Macron met with Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, in a demonstration of unity between the three countries.
Emmanuel Macron’s now repeated statements, refusing to exclude the deployment of Western ground troops to Ukraine, caused confusion among Paris’ allies, led by Germany, and aroused almost unanimous disapproval from the opposition in France.
In his interview with Le Parisien, the French President rejected any disagreement within the Franco-German axis on this issue.
“I wanted to come to Germany very quickly so as not to start a debate about strategic differences that could exist: they do not exist”, he stressed.
“There has never been any disagreement between me and the chancellor. We have very similar views on the objectives and the situation. It is the way we translate them that is different,” he continued, highlighting the differences in the “strategic cultures” of the two countries.
“Germany has a strategic culture of great prudence, of non-intervention, and stays away from nuclear energy,” he explained.
“It is a very different model from that of France, which has nuclear weapons and has maintained and strengthened a professional army,” he added.
The French head of state added that he had abandoned a trip to Kiev to go to Berlin on Friday to speak with Olaf Scholz and Donald Tusk.
Macron had promised he would meet President Volodymyr Zelensky in Ukraine before mid-March, a trip that had previously been scheduled for February and then postponed. Now he says the visit will take place in the coming weeks.
The President also highlighted the complementary nature of the assistance that France and Germany can provide.
“Germany spends more than France, has more budget space, and that is an opportunity. France can do things that Germany cannot,” he told Le Parisien, before relativizing Russia’s power.
“We must not be intimidated, we are not facing a great power. Russia is a medium power with nuclear weapons, but its GDP is much lower than that of Europe, lower than that of Germany or France”, he stated.
At the end of February, the French President stated that international leaders, including those from the European Union (EU), must prepare themselves “for Russia to attack”, and must therefore “do more” to support Ukraine, so that it can gain war.
“In recent months, we have all been subjected to more attacks in terms of information and cyberattacks and, at the same time, I noticed that practically every country represented around this table was able to say […] that the consensus, the collective analysis was that, within a few years, we should be prepared for Russia to attack”, declared Emmanuel Macron.
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Tags: Western military operations Ukraine
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