Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called on French companies including carmaker Renault, supermarket group Auchan and DIY retailer Leroy Merlin to leave Russia, during an address to the French parliament on Wednesday, reports FRANCE 24.
“French companies must quit the Russian market,” Zelensky said during a 15-minute video address in his trademark green T-shirt. “Renault, Auchan, Leroy Merlin and others must stop sponsoring the Russian war machine.”
French lawmakers gave Ukraine and its ambassador to France three standing ovations before the address by Zelensky, who has spoken to parliaments across the Western world in previous weeks in a bid to garner support for his country.
Invoking a specifically French national trauma, as he has done in other nations’ parliaments, the Ukrainian leader said that images of devastated cities such as Mariupol “recall the ruins of Verdun as in the photos of World War I that everyone has seen”.
“The Russian army makes no distinction between targets. They destroy residential areas, hospitals, schools, universities.”