French President Emmanuel Macron and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin yesterday held their first meeting since the French leader came to office, with differences on Ukraine and Syria in full view.
Macron welcomed Putin to the splendor of the Versailles Palace outside Paris with a perfunctory handshake — after the 39-year-old made a point of outlasting US President Donald Trump when they clasped hands at last week’s NATO summit.
It was Macron’s latest test of his diplomatic mettle after the G7 talks in Sicily last week and the NATO summit in Brussels where he turned the tables on Trump by refusing to release his hand for several seconds.
Photo: AFP
Russian Ambassador to France Alexander Orlov said he hoped the meeting could help turn the page on the fraught relationship between Putin and Macron’s predecessor, Francois Hollande.
“Many things in the future will depend on the first meeting,” Orlov told Europe 1 radio. “It is very important that we begin to dissipate the mistrust that has built up in recent years.”
As a candidate, Macron had tough words for Russia, accusing it of following a “hybrid strategy combining military intimidation and an information war.”
Photo: AFP
Macron told a French weekly that he was “not bothered” by leaders who “think in terms of power ratios,” citing Putin as an example along with Trump.
However, Macron said he does not believe in “the diplomacy of public invective but in bilateral dialogue.”
Macron said he would make “not a single concession” to Russia on the long-running conflict in Ukraine as he and his G7 counterparts said they were prepared to strengthen sanctions against Moscow.
The six-year-long Syrian conflict will also be high on the agenda, with Macron saying he was in favor of “building an inclusive political solution in a much more collective way.”
The visit comes seven months after Putin cancelled a trip to Paris for the opening of a Russian cathedral complex in Paris in a spat over Syria with Hollande, who had said Russia’s bombing of Aleppo could amount to war crimes.
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