Dor two years, the Ukrainian people have resisted Russia’s aggression. In this fight where its future and that of our continent are at stake, it needs everything, except false promises. Recent statements by the President of the Republic on the possibility of sending ground troops are of no help to the Ukrainian forces. By dividing Westerners, Emmanuel Macron’s comments weaken Ukraine, Europe and France.
When faced with a determined aggressor, nothing is more dangerous than brandishing a clearly unusable threat. Better still to play on uncertainty. By choosing to move away from ambiguity – at our expense – Emmanuel Macron forced many of our allies, even NATO, to contradict his announcements: Kiev’s supporters cannot envisage sending their armed forces to fight the Russia. If no Western power entered into open war with Moscow even in the hardest hours of the Cold War, it was not out of a “spirit of defeat”, but because it could only add to the danger. And it is not a France in full strategic and diplomatic downgrade that will reverse this equation.
Since 2017, Emmanuel Macron has seriously discredited our country in the eyes of the whole world: the withdrawal of the French presence in Africa, the setbacks experienced by our armies there due to lack of political lucidity, the noisy inconsistencies on Ukraine or Israel, but also the country’s unsustainable budgetary trajectory, the record collapse of its trade balance, the sale of numerous essential assets, all this contributes to disqualifying the scenario of a French power deploying significant conventional forces in Ukraine.
In reality, this communication stunt by the President of the Republic was only intended to make people forget an unspeakable reality: in terms of military aid to Kiev, France would come fifteenth out of forty-two donor countries, very far from the 17 .7 billion euros provided by Germany. The government disputes this figure, but unlike the‘Kiel Institute which published it, he refuses to indicate his methodology. And the main problem is mainly due to the fact that it has not prepared to act in the long term: after having ceded existing equipment, France cannot of course disarm its own forces to support Ukraine.
Need for concrete actions
It was therefore necessary to massively mobilize our defense industry to take over. In this regard, she is even further from the mark. Tired of appearing as one of the most ineffective supporters, our president therefore responded with what he does best: a new controversy. From this point of view, the operation is successful; but we can understand the irritation of our European allies who Paris suddenly accuses of “cowardice”, when they have been warning for a longer time and acting with more effort.
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