Keyword: Vladimir Putin

At a press conference ahead of more than two hours of talks between French President Emmanuel Macron and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in southern France on Monday evening, Putin said he supported a plan for international talks to seek a resolution to the conflict in eastern Ukraine, while Macron said their discussions would centre on the crises in Syria and Libya because "Russia has an essential role in these situations".

At a press conference ahead of their talks at the French President's official retreat on the Mediterranean coast on Monday, Emmanuel Macron tackled Russian President Vladimir Putin on the crackdown on recent opposition protests in Moscow, to which the Russian leader spoke of a toll of deaths and injuries in France's 'yellow vest' protests, adding that, 'We wouldn’t want such events to take place in the Russian capital'. 

French President Emmanuel Macron will host his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin for talks at the Fort de Bregançon, his official summer retreat in southern France, on Monday, ahead of the G7 leaders' meeting in Biarritz next weekend, from which Russia is excluded.

In a speech to the International Economic Forum in St. Petersburg on Friday, French President Emmanuel Macron warned that current world events represented 'one of the most difficult periods of our history', and called on Russia, which he said was 'an inalienable part of Europe' to join in dialogue, warning 'if we miss this moment then we really lose it forever'.

In a joint press conference in St Petersburg ahead of an annual economic forum on Friday, the Russian and French leaders reiterated their support for the Iran nuclear programme limitation deal after the recent US decision to withdraw from it, and that despite US President Donald Trump's decision to pull back from planned talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un negotiations over the latter's proposed denuclearisation of the peninsula should continue.

Vladimir Putin, himself a former KGB officer, listening to officials from the Russian foreign military intelligence agency the GRU in 2006. © Reuters/Itar-Tass/Service de presse présidentiel russe

Russian spies in France are trying to recruit business people, diplomats and military personnel, using resources and methods similar to those used at the height of the Cold War. French counter-intelligence officials are meanwhile working hard to unmask the Russian agents. Though Russia and France are co-operating over antiterrorism issues, their respective intelligence agents are engaged in a parallel, largely hidden struggle, with French soil as the battleground. Matthieu Suc and Jacques Massey report.

French President Emmanuel Macron's office said he spoke by phone on Monday with newly re-elected President Vladimir Putin, when he voiced his hopes for a modernisation of Russia 'on the political, democratic, economic and social fronts', while also discussing Syria and calling for clarity over the nerve agent attack on a former Russian double agent in Britain.

The head of France's cyber security agency says that the hack behind the massive leak of emails from Emmanuel Macron's campaign team on the eve of his election as president on May 7th was of such “simplicity” that it could have been carried out by “anyone”. It is therefore impossible, says Guillaume Poupard, to say whether Russian hacking groups with ties to the government in Moscow were implicated. However, as Agathe Duparc and Anastasia Kirilenko report, investigations by two independent websites in Moscow do indeed point to Russian involvement.

The two men discussed 'disagreements' but French president said he wanted to work with Russia over Syria in fight against terrorism.

French president, who took office two weeks ago, has said that dialogue with Russia is vital in tackling a number of international disputes.

French President Emmanuel Macron and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin will meet on May 29th at Versailles Palace, where an exhibition to mark Russian Tsar Peter the Great’s visit to France exactly 300 years ago is to open.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday congratulated France's newly-elected president Emmanuel Macron, whose campaign staff  previously accused Russia of orchestrating a dirty tricks campaign against him, adding that it was "especially important to overcome mutual mistrust and unite efforts to ensure international stability and security".

© Mediapart

Emmanuel Macron, who was elected as France’s new president on Sunday, gave his last interview before his landslide victory to Mediapart, in which he detailed the measures and policies he would adopt over his five-year term of office. During the two-hour interview on Friday evening, he detailed his approach to a number of foreign policy issues - which were little mentioned during his campaign - including French military intervention abroad, his views on Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Greek debt crisis, and US reluctance to implement the Paris COP 21 measures to combat climate change.

The French far-right leader and presidential candidate Marine Le Pen met with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday, when she also spoke to Russia's lower house, the Duma, when she called for international sanctions against the country to be lifted.