Macron ‘upping the ante’ over Ukraine after talk of sending troops
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00:00 A host of NATO member states have been coming out to say they won't be sending troops to
00:06 Ukraine.
00:07 The clarifications coming after French President Emmanuel Macron left the door open to the
00:10 suggestion at a meeting in Paris on Monday.
00:13 While authorities in Ukraine welcome the idea, NATO says it doesn't want a direct conflict
00:18 with Moscow.
00:19 For more on this story, we can bring in our international affairs editor, Philippe Turle.
00:23 Philippe, great to see you.
00:25 What was Macron thinking when he said what he said?
00:27 And does he not think that Ukraine can win this war on its own?
00:30 I don't think he thinks Ukraine can win the war on its own.
00:35 I think that is a pretty widespread thought amongst many NATO members and Western nations
00:42 that if Ukraine is going to win this war, it's going to depend on how much it gets from
00:48 the West in the way of munitions and in the way of support.
00:52 I think in the words of Emmanuel Macron, in the possibility that in the long run, the
00:57 West may be obliged to send in ground forces.
01:00 If you look at the sentence that he said, there's no consensus to officially send ground
01:04 troops to Ukraine, but nothing should be ruled out.
01:07 No consensus, nothing should be ruled out.
01:10 But we must do everything we can to make sure Russia does not win this war.
01:13 That is also an upping of the ante from Emmanuel Macron compared to his comments of a couple
01:17 of years ago where it was, let's not humiliate Vladimir Putin.
01:21 And he went to Moscow to try to negotiate with the Russian president to stop the war
01:26 from happening.
01:27 And of course, didn't work out.
01:29 So an upping from the ante of the ante by Emmanuel Macron.
01:32 This has become the big talking point here in France over the past 24 years, 24 hours.
01:38 Everybody is talking about it.
01:39 It's in the front page of the newspapers.
01:41 It's been on domestic television nonstop since yesterday.
01:45 All of France's European allies have one after the other said, we don't agree with his statement.
01:50 So was he caught off guard?
01:52 We don't really know.
01:54 Was this just a remark off the cuff that...
01:57 He had all of yesterday to issue a clarification.
01:58 He didn't.
01:59 But he did have his prime minister, Gabriel Attal, who has backed up what Emmanuel Macron
02:03 said and also the foreign minister, Stéphane Sijournet, who has said, well, we may not
02:09 be sending troops, ground forces to Ukraine.
02:14 What Emmanuel Macron said doesn't mean necessarily that NATO is going to get involved in this
02:18 conflict.
02:19 What it does mean maybe is that we're going to send forces into Ukraine to try to boost
02:26 Ukrainian forces by helping with demining, by helping with repairs, by helping with training,
02:30 all of those measures, but not actually on the front line fighting Russian forces.
02:34 So therefore, the Russians can't accuse us of being involved in actually fighting against
02:38 them and bringing NATO into the fight.
02:41 I mean, boots on the ground are boots on the ground regardless of what they're doing, because
02:45 Moscow says that any member state that sends forces to Ukraine are suddenly directly involved
02:53 in the conflict.
02:54 But Moscow has been alleging that this conflict in Ukraine is a proxy war with NATO anyways.
02:58 Well, I think that NATO doesn't want to get involved.
03:02 That's pretty sure here.
03:03 The only comment we've had, the only favourable comment that's come forward out of all of
03:07 the comments over the past 24 hours has been from Ukraine itself, which has said that,
03:12 well, of course, President Macron has sent a good signal by not ruling out deploying
03:18 Western troops on the ground in Ukraine.
03:20 He's now demonstrating a deep understanding of the risks posed to Europe by this war.
03:25 That's the only positive statement.
03:26 The United States, NATO, Germany, Spain, Sweden, all of these countries have said, no, we're
03:33 not going to get involved.
03:34 No, we're not going to send ground forces to Ukraine, principally because that will
03:37 be perceived by Russia as NATO getting directly involved in the war in Ukraine.
03:41 And that's something we don't want.
03:42 That is to say a direct conflict between NATO on one side and Russia on the other with Ukraine
03:47 in the middle.
03:48 So I don't think that we're going to see in the short term any deployment by NATO forces,
03:58 Western forces, boots on the ground in Ukraine.
04:01 What we have also seen over the past 24 hours, and I think that's something we need to bear
04:05 in mind, is that France is heading up like the other EU members to European elections
04:10 this year.
04:11 There's been a lot of bickering going on between the far right, the national rally
04:15 over the fact that Emmanuel Macron is not playing things right as far as the war in
04:21 Ukraine is concerned.
04:22 There's now a debate in parliament about support for Ukraine that's going to take place.
04:26 I think Emmanuel Macron is trying to expose the far right national rally, which is leading
04:30 in the opinion polls as being a party that is playing a double game, that would like
04:35 to support the Russians but doesn't dare say so.
04:38 And therefore they're going to have to come up and say who they stand in favour of when
04:43 this debate takes place in parliament.
04:45 I think that also explains why Emmanuel Macron made those comments.