Ukrainians must be given the "strongest possible hand" - Minister

Paris, 22 November 2024

Watch the interview here

UKRAINE

Q. – Could French long-range missiles soon be fired from Ukraine into Russia too?

THE MINISTER – President Macron last May expressed the idea that according to international law, and in the logics of self-defence, the Ukrainians could use long-range missiles to hit targets in the Russian territory, from where the Russians are aggressing Ukraine.

Q. – Could “relentlessly fighting Putin”, to use your and David Lammy’s phrase, mean expanding the mission of our militaries?

THE MINISTER – That’s what we’re doing right now. We are convinced that we need to keep supporting Ukraine, to allow the Ukrainians, when they consider that the time has come, to enter peace negotiation in a position of strength. This is the reason we keep training and equipping the Ukrainian soldiers. A full brigade was trained in France over the past few months, it’s in the process of going back to Ukraine and [will] be able to fight on the frontline.

Q. – President Macron previously didn’t rule out putting troops on the ground. So can you see a day when French troops might be deployed in Ukraine?

THE MINISTER – What President Macron said is that we should not set and express red lines, we should set a strategic ambiguity and not say what we ought or what we ought not to do, and this is the reason why we do not discard any option publicly, and again, in close cooperation with our allies, with the UK, with the Europeans, with the US, and with the Ukrainians, we decide on what strategies to undertake.

Q. – Is everything though potentially on the table?

THE MINISTER – We will support Ukraine as intensely and as long as necessary. Why? Because it is our security that is at stake. Each time the Russian army progresses by one square kilometre, the threat gets one square kilometre closer to Europe. Our security is at stake, and that’s why we stand alongside the Ukrainians.

NATO MEMBERSHIP

Q. – What about accelerating Ukraine’s entry to NATO? One of the things President Zelenskyy’s victory plan has in it is an immediate invitation. How enthusiastically would you support Ukraine joining NATO?

THE MINISTER – Well, we’ve expressed our openness on the principle of extending an invitation to Ukraine, and more broadly, Euro-Atlantic integration, and that means NATO invitation, that also means EU accession.

Q. – You say you have expressed an openness to it, but given the new dangers, do you think it is something that should be accelerated?

THE MINISTER – This is a discussion that we’re having with other NATO countries, to get them to sort of get closer to our position.

Q. – So you are enthusiastically arguing for this, are you, to allies, saying, get on with it?

THE MINISTER – Well, we are open to extending an invitation, and so in our discussions with friends and allies, and friends and allies of Ukraine, we are working to get them closer to our positions.

Q. – With reports of Putin firing an intercontinental ballistic missile, and Ukraine’s use of US and UK long-range missiles, do you feel that we are in a new moment, a new, more dangerous moment, in this war?

THE MINISTER – Well, it’s yet another escalatory move by Vladimir Putin, who violated international law many times, who deported children from Ukraine to the point that he’s now subject of an arrest warrant by the International Criminal Court, who more recently exported his war of aggression to Asia by resorting to North Korean soldiers in his war of aggression against Ukraine, and who, even more recently, updated his nuclear doctrine, the firing of a intercontinental missile is in the same actions, an action that is meant to intimidate, to create fear and agitation, we will not let ourselves be intimidated by Vladimir Putin.

FUTURE PEACE TALKS

Q. – At the beginning of our conversation, you said you wanted Ukraine to be in a strong enough position in order to enter peace talks. How does this end? Because many conflicts have to end around the negotiating table, but at the moment President Zelenskyy says he will not compromise, he won’t give up an inch of territory, might he have to compromise?

THE MINISTER – I believe that up until the Ukrainians decide that the moment has come for peace, our only responsibility is to support them as much as possible – to give them the strongest possible hand.

Europe will have to stand up in order to ensure and bear its own security in a world that will not look like the world we knew before the start of this war of aggression. This means stepping up our efforts in terms of defence, this means stronger cooperation throughout – or across the European continent, and that’s also one of the reasons why I was today in London to meet with David Lammy.

EUROPE/DEFENCE SPENDING

Q. – Do you think every country in Europe, France and Britain included, will have to pay more of their national income to defence, given the world we live in now?

THE MINISTER – Given the world we live in, we will have to do more in terms of defence, of course we’ll have to spend more if we want to do more, and I think that we have to face those new challenges.

ICC/NETANYAHU

Q. – A few minutes ago you mentioned the International Criminal Court. If Benjamin Netanyahu landed at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, would the French authorities arrest him?

THE MINISTER – This decision by the International Criminal Court is the formalization of an accusation, it is by no means a judgement. We are committed to international justice. We also say that we’ve condemned – in strongest possible terms – the fact that humanitarian help has not been able to reach civil populations in Gaza while the situation is catastrophic. But in no way do we draw any form of equivalence between the Hamas leaders that have been targeted by the ICC and the government of Israel.

We should not do politics with justice, and I will oppose those in my country that will try and use these decisions by the International Criminal Court to – you know, as fuel for their political campaigns, so to speak.

UK-EU RESET

Q. – And if I may, a final question: the Prime Minister here and his team talk all the time about a reset with our European neighbours. What does that mean to you? Because as a concept, I’m not sure that our viewers really know what our government means by it, what does it mean to you?

THE MINISTER – Well, I am the first French Foreign Minister to visit London in six years, so I think that a reset is warranted, and it is more than welcome. We have this shared view about what the future of global governance should be, and in these times where brute force seems to be the way that a number of countries want to govern the world, we need to have an alternative view, which is the view of dialogue, negotiation, and of collective solutions to the challenges of our times.

Q. – Minister, thank you so much for speaking to us today.

THE MINISTER – Thank you very much.

Q. – Thank you./.

¹ The Minister spoke in English.