Macron found Putin "very determined to achieve his objectives", including on "what the Russian president calls the 'de-Nazification' and the 'neutralisation' of Ukraine", said Élysée official.
The Russian invasion has caused a stir inside the French Foreign Legion which has around 700 Ukrainians in its ranks. There have been media rumours of desertions by soldiers who want to go and fight in Ukraine, and the commanding officer has gone public with an appeal for troops to honour their oath to the Legion. Mediapart has meanwhile identified several former legionnaires who are already on the front line and has spoken to one there who claims there are 'a hundred' current and former legionnaire already in Ukraine. Sébastien Bourdon reports.
The invasion of Ukraine is now forcing the world to face up to the unprecedented threat posed by Russian imperialism. In this op-ed article, Mediapart’s publishing editor Edwy Plenel argues that what is needed is a surge of international solidarity to defend and help the Ukrainian people who are resisting that aggression.
In a TV address, the French president denounced the "lies" spread by the Russian government to justify war in Ukraine, but said he would remain in contact with President Putin to try to obtain a ceasefire.
The French presidential election is about to get underway in earnest with President Emmanuel Macron finally set to announce his candidature ahead of the elections in April. According to opinion polls his two main rivals are both from the far-right: the Rassemblement National president Marine Le Pen and maverick polemicist Éric Zemmour. Yet both are set to be embarrassed by the far-right's long-held support of Vladimir Putin at a time when Russia has just sparked outrage around the world by invading Ukraine. As historian Nicolas Lebourg reports, the two candidates will find it hard to reconcile the far-right's general support for Putin's regime and the risk of being seen as traitors to French national interests.
The French presidential office said late Sunday that Emmanuel Macron held two phone calls with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin during which the latter agreed 'in principle' to a summit with US President Joe Biden over tensions in Ukraine.
A Kremlin spokesman has described as 'simply impossible' that any deal was agreed between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron during their talks in Moscow on Monday over the Ukraine crisis, tempering upbeat comments by Macron as he visited Kyiv on Tuesday before travelling on to Berlin.
After a five-hour meeting in the Kremlin between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron, held in an attempt to defuse the crisis over fears of an imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine, Putin said Macron's proposals were a possible 'basis for further steps' adding that Russia 'will do everything to find compromises that suit everyone'.
French head of state will meet Russian president Vladimir Putin on Monday and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday, the Elysée Palace said.
High-level meeting brought together representatives of the four countries under the so-called Normandy Format, which has been used repeatedly since Russia's 2014 annexation of the Ukrainian province of Crimea.
Were it not for his wife Tatiana, Ukrainian mathematician and Soviet dissident Leonid Plyushch would almost certainly never have survived the special psychiatric hospital were he was locked up in 1973. Thanks to her endless, uncompromising campaigning, aided by strong international support, this Ukrainian intellectual eventually forced the Soviet regime to give way, and Leonid Plyushch and his family were freed into exile in January 1976. Leonid died in 2015 but Tatiana Plyushch still lives in their adopted village in the south of France, where Mediapart's François Bonnet went to meet her.
Directeur de la publication : Edwy Plenel
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