Emmanuel Macron condemned Monday evening the recognition of the independence of the separatist regions by Moscow after a Defense Council convened urgently.
According to a press release from the Elysée, the French president is asking for “targeted European sanctions” as well as an emergency meeting of the Security Council.
Emmanuel Macron has been struggling to mediate between Russia and the United States for days.
During the night from Sunday to Monday, the Presidency of the Republic even thought it had done the hardest part by hinting at the possibility of a Putin-Biden meeting in the coming days on the occasion of a summit potentially synonymous with de-escalation.
Scenario denied in the hours that followed by the Kremlin.
“There is an agreement on the fact of having to continue the dialogue.
Talking about concrete plans for organizing summits is premature,” spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
A blow for the French head of state.
“We are making our last efforts, our most intense efforts to avoid the worst (…), this is what the President of the Republic has been working on over the weekend”, defended himself yesterday, in late morning, his entourage, while thinking that a summit between the Russian and American presidents was still "possible" according to Vladimir Putin's intentions.
But the announcement by the latter, at the end of the afternoon, to recognize against all odds the independence of the pro-Russian separatist regions of eastern Ukraine came to shower Western hopes.
It is moreover this decision which prompted the French Head of State to convene a Defense Council to take stock of this new situation, before making a joint call with President Biden and Chancellor Scholz to consider a hardening of your tone vis-à-vis Russia.
A few hours earlier, the European Union, which has repeatedly threatened to impose heavy economic sanctions against Moscow in the event of military aggression, had already said that it was "ready to act" if the Russian president followed the path of acknowledgement.
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