Macron pushes for ‘Euro army’
Emmanuel Macron, the French president, has called for a ‘‘real European army’’ to defend the continent against Russia, China and even the US.
Macron, who has pushed for a joint EU military force since his election last year, issued the call in northern France in the run-up to the centenary of the end of World War I.
‘‘We will not protect the Europeans unless we decide to have a true European army,’’ Macron said in the interview at Verdun, the scene of France’s most bloody battle.
His call came as he was due to welcome Donald Trump, the US president, and other world leaders, including Theresa May and Russia’s Vladimir Putin, to France to commemorate Armistice centenary this weekend.
Macron said the continent could no longer rely on protection from America, citing Trump’s recent decision of to withdraw from a Cold War-era nuclear treaty, and he even suggested its old ally posed a potential threat.
‘‘We have to protect ourselves with respect to China, Russia and even the United States of America,’’ Macron said. ‘‘When I see President Trump announcing that he’s quitting a major disarmament treaty which was formed after the 1980s euro-missile crisis that hit Europe, who is the main victim? Europe and its security.’’
Faced with ‘‘a Russia which is at our borders and has shown that it can be a threat’’, Macron added: ‘‘We need a Europe which defends itself better alone, without just depending on the United States.’’
While he enjoys good working relations with Trump, Macron has called the US president’s America First isolationism ‘‘worrying’’. Last month, he laid into Trump’s policies on Iran, Arab-Israeli peace, climate change and migration in a speech to the UN General Assembly in New York.
The EU launched a multi-billioneuro defence fund last year to develop Europe’s military capacities. France has also led the creation of a military crisis force of nine countries, including Britain, operating outside the framework of the EU after Brexit. But Britain has always argued against the idea of a European army as a competitor to Nato.
Defence analysts expressed scepticism over the concept of a European army. Bruno Alomar, professor at the School of War in Paris, said the idea of creating a ‘‘common strategic culture’’ was interesting. ‘‘But there exists a fantastic gap between European defence dreams of Emmanuel Macron and the reality of very powerful disagreements between European partners on defence issues.’’
Macron has announced that those who fought during WWI will be collectively honoured at the Pantheon monument in Paris, a resting place for some of France’s most distinguished names.
Macron said all soldiers as well as the women supporting them between 1914 and 1918 will be remembered at the monument next year. He said French writer Maurice Genevoix, ‘‘the spokesman of the soldiers’’, will also be interred there at the same time.
Meanwhile, French security agents arrested six people yesterday on suspicion of plotting to attack Macron, according to a French judicial official.
Prosecutors have opened a preliminary investigation of alleged criminal terrorist association, the official said.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said intelligence agents detained the six suspects in three scattered regions: one in the Alps, another in Brittany and four near the Belgian border in Moselle.
The plan to target the French president appeared to be vague and unfinished, but violent, the official said.
Authorities said the six were between the ages of 22 and 62 and included one woman.
Interior Minister Christophe Castaner told reporters they were believed to be far-right activists. –