Emmanuel Macron: why did he refuse to take a PCR test before meeting Vladimir Putin?
During their tete-a-tete in Moscow on February 6, Emmanuel Macron and Vladimir Poutine were seated at a good distance from each other, five meters to be exact. An arrangement due to the refusal of the French president to submit to a PCR test for Covid-19.
Last Sunday, while several elected officials met in Moscow to discuss the Ukrainian crisis, some of them, like Emmanuel Macron, were kept at a safe distance from Vladimir Putin. In fact, in the images, we can see the French head of state seated at the end of a marble table five meters long, enough to avoid any contact with the Russian president. Others, like Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, were able to approach Vladimir Putin and even shake his hand. This difference in treatment, which aroused several reactions on a possible “diplomatic message” from the Kremlin, is explained by the fact that Emmanuel Macron refused to take a PCR test before the interview, as confided by two sources close to the Elysee Palace to Reuters. The latter explain that the French president had been informed by the Russian president of the protocol to be followed and had refused to comply with it. “The Russians told us Putin had to stay in a strict health bubble“, confided one of them. “We knew very well that meant no handshake and that long table. But we could not accept that they recover the DNA of the president”revealed the second.
Vladimir Putin: his health protocol deemed “unacceptable” by the Elysée
While since the start of the health crisis, Vladimir Putin has imposed a very strict protocol on his visitors to avoid any contamination, the Elysée has judged the latter “unacceptable“.”The protocol conditions allowing a meeting between the two Heads of State with less distance (contact with handshake and smaller table, editor’s note) imposed a health protocol that did not seem acceptable to us or compatible with the constraints of the agenda“, said a spokesperson. Other international elected officials, such as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban or Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, have been kept away from Vladimir Putin during recent visits.
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