By reiterating its call for “not to humiliate Russia”, Friday June 3, Emmanuel Macron triggered a new wave of criticism and misunderstanding, at a time when France intends to mediate in the Ukrainian conflict.
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“Calls to avoid humiliating Russia can only humiliate France (…) We all better focus on how to put Russia in her place”immediately replied the head of Ukrainian diplomacy, Dmytro Kouleba.
Enough to throw a new chill between Paris and kyiv while Emmanuel Macron, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the EU until July 1, is under pressure from Ukraine, which has been waiting for his visit since the start of the Russian offensive on February 24.
The reactions are also strong in the countries of Eastern Europe which feel the most threatened by their powerful Russian neighbor.
“The French president is still looking for ways to save the war criminal Putin from humiliation. What would he say to that little girl in Ukraine?”asks the chairman of the Estonian Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, Marko Mihkelson, on his Facebook page, above a photo showing a child with a leg amputated on her hospital bed.
The head of Latvian diplomacy, Edgars Rinkevics, for his part was ironic about the dialogue that Emmanuel Macron continues to have with the master of the Kremlin by quoting, on Twitter, a Russian love song from the Soviet era (“Maybe I forgot my pride. How much I want to hear the voice.”).
“Putin will only negotiate when his army can no longer advance, humiliated or not. Macron should focus on that”also reacted, scathing, the former ambassador of Barack Obama in Russia, Michael McFaul, now a professor at Stanford University.
Emmanuel Macron places himself on his side in the long term, when “peace will return” and that of “new balances of security” will have to be built in Europe. It will then be necessary “never give in to the temptation of humiliation or the spirit of revenge”he dropped on May 9 in Strasbourg.
The Head of State then alludes to the “diktat” imposed in 1919 by the victors of the First World War on Germany, with heavy territorial losses and reparations, which will lead to a new world war in 1939-45.