Emmanuel Macron on Thursday justified his decision not to use the word genocide against Vladimir Putin by believing that “verbal escalation” would not “help Ukraine” and could lead Westerners to intervene.
Emmanuel Macron on Thursday justified his decision not to use the word genocide against Vladimir Putin by believing that “verbal escalation” would not “help Ukraine” and could lead Westerners to intervene. The French president clarified on France Bleu radio that he had spoken in the morning with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky, who on Wednesday had deemed “very hurtful” his refusal to denounce “genocide” in his country. The two heads of state were to speak again at the end of the day, he said. “The word genocide has a meaning” and “must be qualified by jurists, not by politicians”, declared Emmanuel Macron, traveling to Le Havre (north-west) as part of his campaign for the presidential election in France.
According to him, “the States which consider that it is a genocide must by international conventions to intervene. Is this what people want? I do not think so”, because it would be “to become co-belligerent”. of the conflict.
“Everyone must know how to keep reason, it is not helping Ukraine (…) to go into verbal escalation without drawing all the consequences,” he warned.
“I keep the same line of action: do everything to stop this war”
“I keep the same line of action: to do everything to stop this war, to be at the side of the Ukrainians, to continue to have the measures of solidarity and to work to find peace and protect our compatriots from the war”, he said. concluded on the radio. Several leaders, including US President Joe Biden, accuse Vladimir Putin of carrying out a “genocide” in Ukraine, a position welcomed by kyiv.
But, in addition to Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres have refrained from using this term. “Genocide is strictly defined in international law. And at the UN, we rely on the legal determination of the appropriate judicial bodies,” Guterres said.