On Wednesday French President Emmanuel Macron addressed his nation to announce a new global order characterized by Western European aggression toward Russia without the backing of the United States. Macron repeatedly referenced his nuclear weapons as a valuable tool against Russia, although he did not comment on deploying them as a deterrent against the U.S. like a Canadian Prime Minister candidate recently spoke of.
“You are quite rightly concerned about the historical events that are taking place right now and that are shaking up the world order….Support to Ukraine is uncertain, and yet at the same time the United States of America [is] striving to implement tariffs on products being sent out from Europe…It is with clarity that I can say that we are moving into a new era,” Macron said, referencing the end of the post-WWII era.
Macron laid out the battlefield of this new era.
“The Russian threat is ever-present and is on European borders, it is affecting all of us. Russia has already turned the war in Ukraine into a global conflict,” the French leader said. “Russia is crossing borders to influence what is happening in Moldova, in Romania, they are impeding the operations of our hospitals, they are spreading lies on social media, and they are pushing our limits.”
He went on to detail Russian military metrics and figures, then predicted that one day Europe will have peace with Russia, but said now is the time to mobilize against it.
“Given the world of danger that we live in, standing idly by would be madness, so we have to make decisions now for Ukraine, for the security of French people, for Europe,” Macron said.
Surprisingly, Macron did say that peace initiatives with Russia over Ukraine are heading in the right direction, but he then contradicted himself.
“We need to continue enabling Ukrainians to resist so that they can end up in a stable situation for themselves but stability for us as well, and that is why peace cannot be achieved by abandoning Ukraine,” he said, saying Russia cannot dictate the terms of peace.