During his greetings to the armed forces on Monday, French President Emmanuel Macron “called for giving Ukraine the means to last, and to enter any future negotiations from a position of strength.”
The conflict in Ukraine “will not end tomorrow or the day after tomorrow”, Emmanuel Macron warned this Monday, January 20, in a barely veiled warning to Donald Trump, who is being sworn in at the same time as President of the United States, and who had promised a rapid end to the war.
“There cannot be peace and security in Europe without Europeans and without them being negotiated by Europeans,” declared the Head of State during the greetings to the armies near Rennes.
“The challenge today is to give Ukraine the means to last, and to enter into any future negotiations in a position of strength. The challenge tomorrow, when hostilities stop, will be to give guarantees to Ukraine against any return of war to its territory, and assurances for our own security,” he continued.
“A European preference to create jobs”
The tenant of the Élysée also indicated that he was launching a strategic reflection to update the priorities of the armies. Emmanuel Macron also defended a “European preference” in terms of armaments “to have a real return on our budgetary efforts.”
-“A European preference to create jobs (…) throughout the European continent (…), remain master of our destiny, free ourselves from our dependencies and escape the senseless fate which sees us content to be customers other powers when it comes to defending ourselves.”
The Head of State was in Cesson-Sévigné, near Rennes, for his annual greetings to the armed forces, which he placed under the sign of “innovation, cyber and artificial intelligence” at three weeks of the summit on Artificial Intelligence which he is organizing on February 10 and 11 in Paris.
This military district hosts the Digital and Cyber Land Support Command, “created in 2024 to guarantee the operational superiority of land forces”, underlines the Élysée.
