{"id":304673,"date":"2025-03-07T07:04:28","date_gmt":"2025-03-07T07:04:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=304673"},"modified":"2025-03-08T06:53:44","modified_gmt":"2025-03-08T06:53:44","slug":"macron-warns-russian-aggression-knows-no-borders-in-televised-address","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=304673","title":{"rendered":"Macron warns Russian aggression \u2018knows no borders\u2019 in televised address"},"content":{"rendered":"

Angelique Chrisafis \u2013 The Guardian March 5, 2025<\/strong><\/h1>\n

The French president, Emmanuel Macron<\/a>, has warned that Russian aggression \u201cknows no borders\u201d, will not stop at Ukraine and is a direct threat to France and Europe which must prepare in case the US steps away from its side.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to believe the US will stay by our side,\u201d Macron said in a televised address late on Wednesday. \u201cBut we have to be ready if that isn\u2019t the case,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Macron sought to calm what his office called voter anxiety on the Ukraine<\/a> crisis, European security and the threat of a transatlantic trade war after Trump paused US support to Ukraine and also threatened to slap tariffs on goods from the EU, following on from levies imposed on China, Mexico and Canada.<\/p>\n

Macron said to the French public in a prime-time TV speech: \u201cI\u2019m speaking to you tonight because of the international situation and its consequences for Europe<\/a> \u2026 I know you are legitimately worried faced with the historic events that are shaking the world order.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe war in Ukraine<\/a>, which has left almost one million dead and injured, continues with the same intensity. The US, our ally, has changed its position on this war, supporting Ukraine less and allowing doubt to linger on what will come next.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the increasingly \u201cbrutal\u201d world was entering \u201ca new era\u201d and \u201cit would be madness to stay a spectator in this world of danger\u201d.<\/p>\n

Macron said France<\/a> and Europe must keep helping Ukraine \u201cto resist until Ukraine can negotiate a peace with Russia that is solid for themselves and for all of us\u201d. He said no path to peace could happen through \u201cabandoning Ukraine\u201d.<\/p>\n

In an implicit reference to Trump\u2019s attempts to force Ukraine into peace talks with Russia, he added: \u201cPeace cannot be concluded at any price.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cWho can believe today that Russia would stop at Ukraine?<\/p>\n

Macron said any European forces deployed would not fight today or at the frontline, but would be there to guarantee any peace in Ukraine once it had been signed.<\/p>\n

He also said he would discuss with European partners extending French nuclear deterrence to other countries on the continent, but that the decision and control would always remain in the hands of the French president.<\/p>\n

Macron said: \u201c<\/em>Europe\u2019s future should not be decided in Washington or Moscow, and yes the threat from the east is returning. And the innocence of these 30 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall is over.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said France and Europe must also prepare for tariffs on European goods, calling that decision \u201cincomprehensible, as much for the American economy as ours\u201d. He said France and Europe would respond but he hoped to be able to dissuade Donald Trump<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, a Brussels defence summit will see the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, join the 27 EU leaders in person.<\/p>\n

European leaders are stepping up diplomatic efforts after Trump ordered a pause on all critical US military aid for Ukraine against Russia, three years into the invasion, after an explosive public confrontation<\/a> in the Oval Office last week with Zelenskyy.<\/p>\n

After his speech on Wednesday, Macron welcomed the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orb\u00e1n, for a working-dinner at the \u00c9lys\u00e9e Palace amid intense preparations for Thursday\u2019s EU summit on defence and support for Ukraine.<\/p>\n

EU leaders are contemplating the stark prospect of the US withdrawing longer-term support from Kyiv and more broadly from its European allies. The summit will discuss a massive boost in European defence spending to make up for the expected dwindling of transatlantic support under Trump. Alongside the Ukraine crisis, EU leaders will discuss a proposal by the European Commission<\/a> to borrow up to \u20ac150bn to lend to member states under a rearmament plan.<\/p>\n

Consensus on all these issues is not straightforward. Orb\u00e1n is an admirer not only of Trump but also Putin, and has repeatedly broken a united EU front on Ukraine<\/a>. The Hungarian leader \u2013 one of Trump\u2019s and Moscow\u2019s closest allies in the EU \u2013 said earlier this week that a \u201ctransatlantic rift\u201d over Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine had become apparent over recent days.<\/p>\n

He told a briefing: \u201cThere is a clear strategic difference, which the US presidential election has made unbridgeable \u2026 Some want war and some want peace. This is the challenge we will have to face on Thursday.\u201d He said he would have to face that challenge as early as Wednesday, in an apparent reference to his planned dinner with Macron.<\/p>\n

He accused European leaders, who met in London over the weekend to support Kyiv, of having decided \u201cthat the war in Ukraine must continue\u201d.<\/p>\n

An \u00c9lys\u00e9e official said France was \u201cinclusive\u201d and \u201cspeaking to everyone\u201d and viewed Thursday\u2019s summit as \u201ca new moment in the consolidation of European unity\u201d.<\/p>\n

The official said France would press \u201cthe necessity that Ukraine is fully associated with any discussion on its future. That is obvious, but it has to be remembered, respected and fully taken into account.\u201d<\/p>\n

Macron, whose popularity had dropped during a domestic political crisis prompted by him calling snap elections<\/a>, appears to be experiencing a slight increase in support among voters, amid Ukraine diplomacy and the first steps of the Trump administration. One poll<\/a>, after Macron\u2019s recent visit to Washington, showed an improvement in his confidence ratings among French voters.<\/p>\n

But the push to increase French defence spending is coinciding with government struggles to reduce the budget deficit.<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The French president says he will discuss with other leaders extending the French nuclear deterrence to other European countries. As he warns that the whole continent now has to face the threat of Russian aggression<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":233266,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[104,91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-304673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-france","category-russia"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=304673"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304673\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":304674,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304673\/revisions\/304674"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/233266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=304673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=304673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=304673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}