On the steps of the Elysée, this February 16, Volodymyr Zelensky was not stingy in his thanks for his friend “Emmanuel”. The Ukrainian president remembers that his French counterpart was the first to call him on February 24, 2022, offering him refuge in the French embassy when Russian soldiers were roaming the streets of kyiv. He also remembers the precious Caesar cannons, the creation of the “artillery coalition” or that Paris is campaigning to integrate Ukraine into the European Union. “The French president knows how to be generous when he talks about support for the Ukrainian cause, recognizes the German newspaper South German Zeitung. But, in fact, the pattern remains the same since the start of the Russian invasion: first big declarations, then little concrete help.
The latest ranking from the Kiel Institute, cruel for France
The debate has been recurring for two years: France would not do its part in the Ukrainian war effort. A criticism that has become all the more intense in recent days, with the publication of a new report from the Kiel Institute, a German think tank which refers to military and financial support for kyiv. In its latest version, Paris only appears in 14th place in the ranking, behind Switzerland or Belgium. “Among European military powers, France is doing the poorest job of sending arms and ammunition to Ukraine according to new calculations by the Kiel Institute,” slices the influential Politico from Brussels. “The figures show a completely different face of French commitment to Ukraine, the complete opposite of its promises, its calls for solidarity and its gestures of friendship,” slams the German weekly Der Spiegel.
In Paris, these criticisms go down more and more poorly. The Minister of the Armed Forces, Sébastien Lecornu, criticized the Kiel Institute for “mixing cauliflower and carrots” and relying only on declarative statements. “Embarrassed at times, the Elysée always responds by insisting on the quality of what is delivered and on its refusal to compete for rankings, points out the Swiss newspaper The weather. Problem: France refuses to share the figures of its donations and prefers to communicate on one-off promises such as those concerning the Caesar cannons, the Crotale surface-to-air missile systems or the long-range Scalp missiles. This way of doing things is increasingly frowned upon in Berlin.”
Because the figures are stubborn, including with the Paris calculations. The Elysée recently circulated its own estimates to journalists, estimating its military support for Ukraine at 1.7 billion euros in 2022 and 2.1 billion in 2023. 3.8 billion euros in total therefore , still far from the 17 billion euros mobilized by Germany, European champion in this area. Hence the surprise of the South German Zeitung faced with “the absence of debate in French society on arms deliveries, unlike what is happening in Germany: they do not have platforms of pacifists demanding an end to all military aid, but on the other hand, very few strong voices are being raised to demand that Macron send more weapons to Ukraine.”
These criticisms against France mask a broader phenomenon, which sees European aid to Ukraine supplanting that provided by the United States. At a time when France and Germany are signing bilateral security agreements with Kiev, Donald Trump’s allies in the US Congress continue to block $60 billion in aid to Ukraine and endanger its resistance to Russian invasion. This is undoubtedly the real figure that should worry Westerners, and the one that could make the difference against Putin’s army.
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