Putin, Macron to air tough issues at Versailles meet
PARIS — France's new President Emmanuel Macron will hold delicate talks with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Put in on Monday with the two countries harboring longstanding differences over Ukraine and Syria.
Coming just three weeks after an election in which the Kremlin was widely seen as backing centrist Macron's far-right rival Marine Le Pen—with Putin hosting her during a surprise visit to Moscow—the encounter in Versailles, near Paris, has an added personal edge.
As a candidate, Macron, 39, had tough words for Russia, accusing it of following a "hybrid strategy combining military intimidation and an information war."
Since the start of the Ukraine crisis in 2014, Russia has flexed its muscles with a series of war games involving tens of thousands of troops in areas bordering NATO Baltic states.
Macron criticized Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea and "shows of force in Syria or alongside our coastlines and airspaces, (and) the use of social media or state-controlled media to destabilize public opinion."
But he said it was essential to "keep dialogue open with Moscow"—while government spokesman Christophe Castaner said Friday that "dialogue does not mean agreement." Ahead of Monday's meeting, the two countries' foreign ministers spoke by telephone on Friday, the Russian foreign ministry said.
Putin adviser Yuri Ushakov has described the visit as an "informal" occasion that will nevertheless touch on some tough issues.
"France is among the countries with a very severe stance towards the regime of (Syrian President) Bashar al Assad, so I think a discussion on this subject will be interesting and frank," Ushakov told a Moscow news briefing.
The stakes are high for Russia, said Fyodor Lukyanov of the Council on Foreign and Defence Policy. "It's obvious that the Russian side wants to break the impasse," he told AFP in Moscow. "One shouldn't expect anything from this visit," he added, however. "It's a matter of the two leaders getting to know each other and to create a positive ambiance—or not."
Putin, 64, was quick to congratulate Macron on his election, urging him to "overcome mutual distrust" and "join forces to ensure international stability and security."
The visit comes seven months after the Russian leader cancelled a trip to Paris for the opening of a Russian cathedral complex near the Eiffel Tower in a spat over Syria with then president Francois Hollande, who had said Russia's bombing of Aleppo could amount to war crimes.
The venue will be the sumptuous palace of Versailles, where the pair will inaugurate an exhibition marking 300 years of Franco-Russian ties since the visit of Russia's modernising tsar Peter the Great to France in 1717. "The idea is to stress ... the duration and depth of the link between the two countries," a Macron aide said.