Support for Ukraine at a time when the United States is distancing itself from Kyiv and moving closer to Russia, European rearmament and the role of Europe in eventual peace negotiations, an option that Washington is currently ruling out, are positions defended by the president that found support in the hemicycle.
It was given that Macron’s ideas were promoted by his camp, and in that sense Prime Minister François Bayrou spoke to the deputies of a scenario with an unprecedented seriousness since World War II, advocating European independence in the face of the change in the American position.
In his opinion, President Donald Trump’s policy of negotiating with Moscow leaves two victims: “the security of Ukraine and the idea of the alliance with the United States.”
For his part, the head of the ruling party in the National Assembly, Gabriel Attal, urged Europe to take its future into its own hands without being subjugated and without putting money before freedom, in reference to Trump’s pressure to seize strategic Ukrainian resources. From the opposition, both the socialists and the ecologists argued, like Macron, an alleged Russian threat to the old continent, called for continued support for Ukraine and accompanied the crusade to strengthen the military capacity of the European Union (EU).
The leader of the socialists in the lower house, Boris Vallaud, went beyond supporting the sending of weapons to kyiv, by pointing out that his party would favor the dispatch of French troops to Ukraine if peace were to come, in order to guarantee its security, a red line already warned by Russia.
However, not everything was music to the government’s ears in the House of Commons, and the MP and leader of the National Rally (far right), Marine Le Pen, stressed that there is no military solution to the conflict.
Ukraine cannot defeat Russia without NATO entering the war, which is not an option, she said.
Le Pen advocated supporting Kiev with realism and the prevalence of national interests and proposed organizing a peace conference without the participation of bodies such as NATO or the EU.
Tomorrow the Senate, controlled by the right, will hold a similar debate, with an introductory speech by the prime minister.
ef/oda/wmr
