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French President Emmanuel Macron has reiterated his message to Europeans, urging them to “rediscover their taste for risk, ambition and power” in the face of Donald Trump’s unpredictability.
This was reported by BFMTV.
While on a two-day state visit to Portugal, Macron on Thursday called on Europeans to be “more united and stronger than ever” and to abandon “happy vassalage” to the United States at a time when negotiations on Ukraine are accelerating on both sides of the Atlantic.
This official trip to Portugal, the first by a French head of state in more than a quarter of a century, was intended, in the words of the Elysee Palace, to “celebrate the depth and closeness of ties” between the two countries.
Macron, however, used the occasion to deliver his message to Europeans, urging them to “rediscover their taste for risk, ambition and power” in the face of Donald Trump’s unpredictability, both on Ukraine and on customs duties.
“I see a lot of people in our Europe saying: “We have to be nice to the Americans, it will pass, we have to bend our backs,” he said at the end of the day during a meeting at a startup incubator on innovation and artificial intelligence.
But “the answer is not submission” and “I am not for happy vassalization,” he added.
On the contrary, “Europeans can be convinced of one thing: they must be united and stronger than ever,” and for this “we absolutely have to make very deep choices…in technological, industrial (and) defense issues,” he said.
However, Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s visit to Washington on Friday to conclude a deal on the development of Ukrainian minerals “is a very good thing,” said the French president, who himself traveled to the White House on Monday.
“I tried to explain the importance” of Ukraine and its ‘existential struggle’ for ‘sovereignty’ and ‘security of Europeans,’ he recalled.
Portuguese Prime Minister Luis Montenegro also congratulated his guest “for his outstanding work in the international arena aimed at taking positive measures in favor of peace in Ukraine” and “in other geographical regions to stabilize conflicts.”
As reported, French President Emmanuel Macron hopes to have convinced his American counterpart Donald Trump not to wage a trade war against Europe but to focus on China.
As a reminder, during his meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron on February 24, US President Trump supported the deployment of European troops to monitor a potential “ceasefire” in Ukraine and admitted that the United States could provide them with some support.
According to media reports, Trump did not give French President Macron any specific commitments to support the European contingent.
