The French president refused to set limits on a response to Moscow in a TV interview meant to win over the public to his strategy.
French President Emmanuel Macron doubled down on refusing to rule out sending troops to Ukraine during a 30-minute, prime-time television interview on Thursday in which he once again presented the war in Ukraine as an existential threat.
“If Russia were to win, the lives of French people would change,” Macron said. “We would no longer have security in Europe.”
The interview, aimed at shifting French public opinion in favor of his strategy of strategic ambiguity, began with reporters from French broadcasters TF1 and France 2 asking Macron to clarify his statements from February in which he refused to rule out sending Western ground troops to Ukraine. The comments caused an uproar both at home and abroad, and prompted France’s top NATO partners, including the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany, to clarify that they would not be sending troops.