French children asked Macron to promise that there would be no war
Children asked French President Emmanuel Macron during his visit to Marseille ‘to promise that there will be no war’, and he responded that France ‘is doing everything for this’, RIA Novosti reports with reference to the BFMTV channel
Mr. Macron's visit to Marseille was dedicated to the fight against drug trafficking, and – during his talk with citizens – a boy addressed the French leader, “Monsieur, can you promise me something? Let there be no war.” A little girl then asked the President about the situation in Ukraine.
“We are doing everything for this!” Mr. Macron responded, noting that it is necessary to convince Russia ‘to leave Ukraine’ for this. According to him, the Russian authorities need to be ‘dissuaded from continuing the advance (of troops)’, since ‘it will be terrible for us’ if Russia ‘wins there’.
Earlier, Mr. Macron claimed that the European Union had decided to create a ‘ninth coalition for deep strikes’: the supply of medium and long-range missiles to Ukraine. He added that France will do everything so that Russia ‘does not win this war’. The French President noted that the leaders of Western countries had talked about the possibility of sending troops to Ukraine, a consensus had not yet been reached, ‘but nothing could be ruled out’. During his meeting with the opposition leaders in early March, Mr. Macron once again said that France ‘had no limits and no red lines’ on the issue of assistance to Ukraine. His words were later criticised by some NATO partners, including Germany and the political forces of France. The leaders of all political parties accused Mr. Macron of dragging Paris into the conflict and frivolity, also reproaching him for not consulting with Parliament on these issues.
After Mr. Macron's statements, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Defence Minister Boris Pistorius stated that Berlin would not send its military personnel to Ukraine, and Olaf Scholz drew attention to the fact that NATO countries as a whole were not going to do that. The Chancellor again announced that there were no plans to transfer long-range Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine.
Moscow officials later commented that they had drawn attention to Emmanuel Macron's words that the topic of sending military personnel to Ukraine had been discussed in Europe, and his position on inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia in Ukraine was also well known to Russia. The Kremlin is confident that a number of countries participating in the Paris event on Ukraine maintain ‘a fairly sober assessment of the potential dangers of such an action and a potential danger of direct involvement in a hot conflict’, and this is ‘absolutely not in the interests of these countries, they should be aware of this’.
Also, according to the survey, almost 60 percent of French citizens believe Emmanuel Macron has gone too far in supporting Ukraine. They think France should not participate in the conflict and risk a direct clash with Russia.
