In the meantime, he no longer believes one word of the other, does he? Vladimir Putin and Emmanuel Macron, pictured here in Paris in December 2019.
Image: Imago
A film on France 2 shows what Emmanuel Macron was doing when Russia attacked Ukraine. France’s President allows insights like never before. We see him on the phone with Putin. The openness is intended to thwart its propaganda. But who is in charge here?
“Allo?” Emmanuel Macron is switched to the Federal Chancellery in Berlin, but the line remains silent for a few minutes. “We’re in really big trouble if even the Germans aren’t on time anymore,” jokes the French President. His advisors laugh, then Olaf Scholz’s voice can be heard in the Salon jaune: “Bonjour Emmanuel!” “Nothing new” tells Scholz, without translation and in English, to Macron about his most recent conversation with Vladimir Putin. He called for the neutrality of Ukraine and also “denazification,” says Scholz, but he did not mention “the question”.
Putin’s nuclear threat
What is obviously meant is Putin’s nuclear weapons threat, which was occupying Western capitals at the time of the conversation, on March 4, 2022. That sounds a lot like his recent phone call with Putin, Macron replies: “I’m pretty pessimistic.” “Putin is becoming more and more radical.”