Macron says Europe should prepare to defend Ukraine with troops
Europe should consider sending troops to help defend Ukraine if Russian forces break through their defence lines, President Macron has said.
Expanding on remarks he made in February about possible military invention, the French leader said it was vital to rule no measures out because “if Russia wins in Ukraine, there will be no security in Europe”.
“Who can pretend that Russia will stop there? What security will there be for the other neighbouring countries, Moldova, Romania, Poland, Lithuania and the others?” he told The Economist.
The president compared possible western military intervention to France’s deployment of troops to western Africa over the past decade to help governments fight Islamist forces. “If the Russians were to break through the front lines, if there were a Ukrainian request [for western troops] — which is not the case today — we would legitimately have to ask ourselves this question,” he added.
Voicing a favourite theme, Macron reaffirmed his view that Europe must devise a defence system of its own because it could no longer count on the United States to protect the bloc through Nato. This should include not only the EU but the European Political Community, a grouping of EU and non-EU states, such as Britain. Macron launched the EPC, whose leaders are to meet in July at Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire, the birthplace of Winston Churchill.
Macron voiced no regrets over his remarks made in February on sending troops, which drew a sharp put-down from Germany and caused uproar in several other EU states.
He painted a bleak view of Europe as it contends with three threats that he believes could end its existence. The bloc faced aggression from Russia that was both military and aimed at internal disruption through disinformation and cyberattacks, he said. It was also falling behind in the economic and technological race with the United States and China, and being attacked by anti-liberal nationalists from within.
Macron compared the prospect of intervention in Ukraine to French troops being deployed to western Africa to counter Islamist fighters
Of the populist right, he said: “In Europe and everywhere else, they are creating a rise in anger and resentment. Our compatriots feel it. It feeds fear, anger, and that feeds the extremes. Things can happen much more quickly than we think and can lead to a more brutal death [of our Europe] than we imagine.”
He accused the nationalists, led in France by Marine Le Pen and her right-wing National Rally, of distorting the European debate by attacking the EU and denying its benefits. “Brexit has impoverished the United Kingdom. Brexit has done nothing to solve immigration in the UK,” he said. “Despite that, some people think it doesn’t look so bad. But nobody dares to say that anything is wrong.
“I say to Europeans, ‘Wake up. Wake up!’ They are hidden Brexiteers. All European nationalists are hidden Brexiteers. It’s all the same lies. In the end, it’s the same results.”