Russia Today:
Paris is an ally and not a “vassal” of Washington,
French President Emmanuel Macron insisted on Wednesday. He was defending
his recent comments about the EU needing “strategic autonomy” in the
face of rising tensions between the US and China.
“Being an ally
does not mean being a vassal... doesn’t mean that we don’t have the
right to think for ourselves,” Macron said in Amsterdam at a joint press
conference with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte.
Asked for the
French position on Taiwan, Macron said Paris supports the status quo,
meaning the “One China policy and the search for a peaceful resolution
to the situation.”
Returning from his trip to China on Sunday,
Macron argued that the EU can’t just be “America’s followers,” and that
it is not in the bloc’s interest to stoke tensions over Taiwan. “The
worst thing would be to think that we Europeans must become followers on
this topic and take our cue from the US agenda and a Chinese
overreaction,” he told reporters.
The remarks earned a swift
rebuke from US Senator Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican on the foreign
affairs committee, who suggested Washington might leave the EU to handle
the Ukraine conflict by itself.
Taiwanese Parliament Speaker
You Si-kun on Tuesday argued that France had forsaken its motto of
‘liberty, equality, fraternity’, and that advanced democracies should
not “ignore the lives and deaths of people in other countries,” adding
that Macron’s comments left him “puzzled.”
Meanwhile, French
Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said that Macron was “perfectly right to
demand European independence and sovereignty,” while the president of
the European Council, Charles Michel, noted that “quite a few” leaders
of EU countries think like Macron, even though they “wouldn’t say things
the same way.”
When asked about the French president’s comments
on Monday, the US State Department said France is a long-standing ally
and that occasional disagreements do not detract from the “deep
partnership” with Paris. As for the EU position, a State Department
spokesman cited a recent speech by the bloc’s president, Ursula von der
Leyen, which described China as “a national and economic security
threat,” and said there is “immense convergence” between Washington and
Brussels on the matter.
