“None of this makes any sense”
Macron calls Shoigu’s statements “bizarre and threatening”
April 4, 2024, 3:39 p.m
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Actually, French President Macron wanted nothing more than to give Moscow “information” about the attack on the concert hall through a phone call between his defense minister and his Russian counterpart. However, he did not expect the reaction of the person he was talking to.
After a telephone conversation between French Defense Minister Sébastien Lecornu and his Russian counterpart Sergei Shoigu, French head of state Emmanuel Macron rejected Moscow’s statements as “threatening”. “None of this makes any sense,” Macron said on the sidelines of the inauguration of an aquatic sports center for the Olympic Games in Paris. The Russian side’s comments were “bizarre and threatening.”
“It is a manipulation of information that is part of the military arsenal used today by Russia,” the French leader added.
After the hour-long phone call, the Russian Ministry of Defense indicated that French intelligence could possibly be involved in the attack on a concert hall near Moscow that left at least 144 dead. “The regime in Kiev does nothing without the consent of its Western overseers. We hope that in this case the French secret service is not behind it,” the ministry said.
“Increasing Russia’s aggressive posture”
On March 22, masked attackers broke into the packed Crocus City Hall in the northwest Moscow suburb of Krasnogorsk and opened fire. The jihadist militia Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility for the crime shortly after the attack.
The French initiative for the phone call was aimed at providing Russia with “useful information” about the background to the attack, emphasized Macron. He sees Moscow’s statements as evidence of what he has been pointing out since the beginning of the year: “an increase in Russia’s aggressive stance.” There is a sequence of information “that is known to be false and that corresponds to a threatening attitude,” the French president continued.
The phone call was the first official exchange between France and Russia since October 2022. Observers had seen it as a change of course by Macron towards Moscow, which had toughened its tone towards Russia in recent months.