For MEP Raphaël Glucksmann, “we should do everything we can to help the Ukrainian resistance”, for “ourselves, for our own security, for our own stability”.
It would be “the honor of France” of“start the movement” because “it’s a taboo that must be broken”, said Monday, May 15 on franceinfo Raphaël Glucksmann, MEP Place Publique and chairman of the special committee on foreign interference in the democratic process of the European Union, while Volodymyr Zelensky continues to demand combat aircraft. The President of Ukraine met Emmanuel Macron on Sunday evening in Paris after passing through Rome and Berlin.
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The two presidents jointly announced that France would train and equip “several battalions with dozens of armored vehicles and light tanks” in the next few weeks, but the delivery of fighter jets is “premature” for the Elysee. “We are falling behind and this delay is being paid for in human lives on the ground”regretted Raphaël Glucksmann. “We should do everything we can to help the Ukrainian resistance”For “ourselves, for our own safety, for our own stability”he explained.
franceinfo: France will not deliver combat aircraft for the time being. Do you regret it?
Raphael Glucksmann: As always, as at each stage in the delivery of arms, we are falling behind and this delay is being paid for in human lives on the ground. We hesitated for months and months before delivering tanks, before delivering missiles. We do the same thing on airplanes. It’s a shame because from the beginning our strategy should be clear. We will not intervene militarily directly on the Ukrainian front. It is the Ukrainians who are going to die and whom they are going to fight. On the other hand, below this red line, we should do everything we can to help the Ukrainian resistance, because it is not only for Ukraine that we are doing it, it is also for ourselves, for our own security, for our own stability. Each delay is paid for in terms of security and in the question of human lives on the ground.
The Élysée says it is a “bit premature”. Will we end up delivering these planes?
We will come to this as on all the other questions. At first, we hesitated before heavy weapons. We only wanted to deliver helmets and medical equipment. Then finally, we agreed to deliver weapons. And then, the question of tanks which came up, the question of long-range missiles came up and each time the same decision was taken, not out of altruism, but out of realism because we know well, deep down, that this what is at stake in Ukraine is our own security, our own stability.
“There is no investment in security better than the weaponry that we hand over that we supply to the Ukrainian resistance. This is our first line of defense today.”
Raphaël Glucksmann, French MEP.at franceinfo
It is not simply solidarity with a people who are fighting heroically for their survival and for our principles. It is at bottom very intelligent selfishness, well-felt selfishness. Vladimir Putin must lose this war, otherwise we will no longer experience peace and stability in Europe in the coming years and decades.
If France refuses these deliveries, it is perhaps so as not to deprive its own army?
There are Mirage 2000s which were sold in the United Arab Emirates and which today are no longer useful, which are no longer used by anyone. It is not simply a question of disarming the French army, it is a question of taking the symbolic political decision to deliver planes. That’s what’s blocking today. It would be the honor of France and also its intelligence to take the lead, including in relation to the United States, and to initiate the movement because it is a taboo that must be broken, as the previous taboos on the tank deliveries or missile deliveries. It’s more a political gesture than a question of availability of equipment.