Baghdad-INA
French President Emmanuel Macron confirmed in an interview published by Le Parisien newspaper yesterday evening, Saturday, that ground operations in Ukraine by Westerners may be necessary “at some point.”
Macron said in the interview, “Maybe at some point – I don’t want that and I won’t take the initiative – there should be operations on the ground, whatever their form, to confront Russian forces.”
He added, “France’s strength is that we can do this.”
In the German capital, Macron met with Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, in a show of unity between the three countries.
Macron refuses to rule out the idea of sending ground forces to Ukraine, and his repeated statements on this subject have raised problems among Paris’s allies, led by Germany, and were met with almost unanimous rejection from the opposition in France.
In his interview with Le Parisien, Macron ruled out any disagreement between the French and Germans on this issue. He said, “I wanted to come to Germany very quickly so that there would not be a discussion about strategic differences that might exist, because they do not exist.”
He added, “There has never been any disagreement between me and the advisor at all. We have a very strong consensus in views about the goals and the situation. It is the way of translating them that differs,” highlighting what he called the “strategic cultures” in the two countries.
He explained, “Germany has a strategic culture of extreme caution and non-interference, and it keeps its distance from nuclear weapons. This is a completely different model from the model of France, which is equipped with nuclear weapons and has maintained and strengthened a professional army.”
Macron stated that his visit to Kiev will take place in the coming weeks.
In the interview, the French President also stressed the complementarities in the field of aid that France and Germany can provide. He said, “Germany spends more than France, and has more space in the budget, and this is an opportunity,” adding, in return, that “France can do things that Germany cannot do.”
Macron commented on Russia’s power, saying, “We must not give in to intimidation. We are not facing a superpower. Russia is a middle power that possesses nuclear weapons, but its gross domestic product is much less than the gross domestic product of the Europeans, and less than the gross domestic product of Germany and France.”
2024-03-19 17:30:46