Paris, Mar 14 (EFE) – French President Emmanuel Macron insisted on Thursday that he is exploring all options to prevent a Russian victory in Ukraine, including sending troops, warning that the European Union faces an “existential” threat from Russia if Vladimir Putin’s forces are not defeated in Ukraine.
“If Ukraine falls, our security will be threatened. If the escalation continues, we must be ready to take all the necessary decisions so that Russia never wins,” Macron asserted in a prime-time television interview.
Three weeks after first declaring that he would not rule out sending his soldiers onto Ukrainian soil, which has not been supported by any other Western power, he argued that strategic ambiguity was necessary to deter Moscow.
“If we decide to be weak in the face of someone like Putin, who has no limits, if we naively tell him that we will not go beyond this or that limit, it would not be seeking peace, it would be accepting defeat,” he asserted.
The French president maintained an alarmist language, pointing out that the war is “less than 1,100 kilometers from Strasbourg” and speaking of an “existential” conflict “for Europe and for France.”
Macron was speaking ahead of a meeting in Berlin with the leaders of Germany, Olaf Scholz, and Poland, Donald Tusk, the so-called “Weimar Triangle,” which will focus on the war in Ukraine.
Macron called for increased military aid to Kyiv, including loans and military production on Ukrainian soil.
The French president, whose country is the only one in the EU that possesses nuclear weapons, declared that this advantage is “an additional security for the French”, but also “a responsibility” that prevents it from being used as “an instrument of destabilization or threat.”
He clarified that Paris will never take the offensive initiative because “France is a country of peace” and it is not “at war with Russia.”
Macron described Russia as a “destabilizing power” and specified that “there will be no lasting peace if there is no sovereignty and return to the internationally recognized borders in Ukraine.”
With three months to go before the European elections, in which polls predict a heavy defeat for his party at the hands of the far right, Macron also sent messages of domestic interest, criticizing the parties less committed to Ukraine.
“Those who set limits to the commitment to Ukraine are not betting on peace, they are betting on defeat,” said the president in reference to the far right of Marine Le Pen and the leftist La France Insoumise, which did not support the treaty signed with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. EFE lmpg/ics
