Nicolas Sarkozy’s statements do not fail to provoke reactions. The former head of state estimated in a fluvial interview with Figaro mid-August that Ukraine should “remain neutral” without joining NATO or the European Union. Emmanuel Macron, however, no longer rules out the possibility of kyiv joining these two institutions. Which deeply displeases former Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin.
“What surprised me at first, and then surprised me, is that a former President of the Republic adopts a position diametrically opposed to the official position of his country, France, which supports Ukraine and fights, if we can say so, against Russia”, explained the socialist on Friday in France inter.
“Yes”, Sarkozy is “pro-Russian”
Asked if the former president could be “pro-Russian”, Lionel Jospin replied: “Yes, I did.”
Sarkozy accused of “forgetting what happened” during the invasion of Ukraine
“Ukraine is a link between the West and the East, it must remain so,” Nicolas Sarkozy decided for his part, considering that the country’s accession to the Atlantic Alliance or to Europe were “false promises that will not be fulfilled.”
The former Élysée tenant proposed “an international agreement that provides for extremely strong security guarantees to protect it against any risk of new aggression.” The former head of the Republicans still believes that in Crimea, annexed by Russia in 2014, “any retreat is illusory.”
Lionel Jospin strongly disputed his analysis, accusing him of having “forgotten what happened during the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.”
“The objective was not to recover Donbass, Donetsk or Crimea, since Russia had already seized them,” analyzes the former prime minister.
The former president calls for “a referendum” to “confirm the current situation”
“The goal was for an expeditionary force to go to Kiev, take down the legitimate authorities, maybe eliminate them, and Ukraine to be under Russian control and, incidentally, Russia to be on Poland’s borders. That’s the goal. origin”, continues the socialist.
According to Nicolas Sarkozy, a “superior way out” of the conflict would even consist of organizing “referendums strictly supervised by the international community to resolve territorial issues definitively and transparently”, in particular in “the disputed territories of the East and Eastern “. south of Ukraine”.
For him, “an indisputable referendum will be necessary (…) to ratify the current state of affairs.”
Macron forced to react
Nicolas Sarkozy’s position has embarrassed Emmanuel Macron and French diplomacy. The head of state reacted by video during a summit of the “Crimean Platform”, an annual event desired by the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to remember the Ukrainian sovereignty over the peninsula.
The opportunity for him to remember very clearly that “France does not recognize neither Russia’s annexation of Ukrainian territories nor the results of organized fake elections.”
In his message, Emmanuel Macron again underlined on Wednesday the “historic decision to recognize Ukraine as a candidate for membership of the European Union”. “We will remain by your side on this European path and in your aspiration for a just and lasting peace, that is, in respect of international law,” he insisted.
Lionel Jospin is not the only leftist who has harshly criticized Nicolas Sarkozy. François Hollande highlighted “the mistakes” of his predecessor in Ukraine. “When referendums are organized on Russian territory, the same result is always obtained,” said the former socialist president.
Source: BFM TV
