The French head of state was the guest of the 8 p.m. news on TF1 and France 2, this Thursday, March 14. An interview devoted almost exclusively to the war in Ukraine. For several weeks, Emmanuel Macron has been warning against the hardening of the Kremlin’s positions and calling for a “judgment” going so far as to raise the possibility of sending ground troops. The president therefore wanted to explain the situation and its consequences to the French himself during this interview.
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It was an educational operation for Emmanuel Macron, criticized for days for having mentioned the possibility of sending ground troops to Ukraine, recalls Valérie Gas, head of the political department of RFI. In the community hall of the Élysée, facing two journalists, the head of state assumed responsibility.
There are less than 1,500 km between Strasbourg and Lviv, so it is not fiction and it is not far from us. All these options are possible, the only one who will be responsible for them is the Kremlin regime.
The French president made a point of recalling that “ we will never lead an offensive, we will never take the initiative. France is a force for peace. Simply, today, to have peace in Ukraine, you must not be weak. »
Faced with a Vladimir Putin judged in full “ authoritarian and repressive drift », Emmanuel Macron sees only one option: prevent Russia from achieving victory against kyiv. “ If Russia were to win, the lives of the French would change and the security of the French is at stake there. »
We would no longer have security in Europe. Who can think for a single second that President Putin, who has not respected any of his commitments, would stop there?
🔴LIVE – 🗣️”We must not let Russia win.”
Emmanuel Macron returns to his statements regarding the possible sending of troops to Ukraine, which sowed disorder in a large part of Europe.
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“Our security is also at stake in Ukraine today”
This time, Emmanuel Macron was careful not to use overly “go-to-war” formulas, even if he said he regrets that Western leaders put too many limits in their vocabularies.
He therefore rather evokes a necessary start, adding that there is an international consensus on the idea that the Kremlin represents an existential threat to Europe. But there is no question, this time, of brutally saying that he could send soldiers to Ukraine.
We are not waging war on Russia. Elit attacks us on the cyber level, and we must be careful not to immediately qualify them, because otherwise, we ourselves would be in the escalation and Russia would in turn decide on an escalation which would take us all in a conflict. I wish with all my might that this were not the case, but for sure today Russia is an adversary.
The master of the Kremlin is therefore for the moment an adversary, and not yet an enemy. The transition from one notion to another is therefore measured by the importance of escalation, a vague semantics dear to the French president who often refers to the military concept of strategic ambiguity, recalls our defense specialist, Franck Alexandre. This consists of making the adversary doubt his intentions in order to maintain room for maneuver.
The Head of State also wanted to alert the French and appear to be up to the challenges: “ My responsibility is the security of the French and national defense. And our security is also at stake in Ukraine today. » A way of criticizing without naming his adversaries from the National Rally and La France insoumise, who have not did not support the security agreement with Ukraine.
Choosing to abstain or vote against supporting Ukraine is not choosing peace, it is choosing defeat and that is very different.
Faced with the Russian threat, Emmanuel Macron thus attempts to embody a rampart.
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