Hardening his tone as talks to end the war in Ukraine gather pace, President Emmanuel Macron of France called Vladimir V. Putin, the Russian president, “a predator, and an ogre at our doorstep.”
The statement, made in an interview with the French TV news network LCI that was broadcast on Tuesday, was consistent with Mr. Macron’s recent warnings that Mr. Putin is not to be trusted. But it was blunter and harsher than his previous characterizations of the Russian leader.
The remarks represented a considerable shift from the warmth between the two men six years ago, when Mr. Macron invited Mr. Putin to the Brégançon fort, the summer retreat of French presidents that is on the southern coast of France. Mr. Macron declared after that meeting that the “architecture of security” between the European Union and Russia needed reinvention to take account of Russian strategic concerns.
Speaking after the meeting in Washington on Monday between President Trump and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, which Mr. Macron and other European leaders attended, the French president called Mr. Putin “a destabilizing force” who “needs to eat for his own survival.” This appeared to be an allusion to the 2022 Russian invasion aimed at swallowing Ukraine and to Moscow’s earlier predations in Crimea and Georgia.
Mr. Macron called Russia a potential threat for many European countries and warned their leaders not to be naïve. “I am not saying that France will be attacked tomorrow, but the menace is there for Europeans,” he said.
In effect, Mr. Macron appears to be playing bad cop to Mr. Trump’s good cop, siding emphatically with Mr. Zelensky and repeatedly expressing pessimism about Mr. Putin’s willingness to reach a peace settlement that is not a Ukrainian capitulation.
Mr. Macron has clearly been angered by Mr. Putin’s broken promises, including a pledge the Russian leader made to him not to send troops into Ukraine just before the full-scale invasion. The French leader also views the defense of Ukraine as an absolute condition for the strong and resilient Europe he seeks to build in light of American unpredictability under Mr. Trump.
Roger Cohen is the Paris Bureau chief for The Times, covering France and beyond. He has reported on wars in Lebanon, Bosnia and Ukraine, and between Israel and Gaza, in more than four decades as a journalist. At The Times, he has been a correspondent, foreign editor and columnist.
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