Emmanuel Macron did not rule out withdrawing the Legion of Honor awarded by his predecessor Jacques Chirac to Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2006, although he explained that he wanted to choose “the right moment to do it.”
On Wednesday night, the Head of State presented Volodymyr Zelensky, passing through Paris during his second trip out of Ukraine since the start of the Russian invasion, the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor. This is the highest distinction that a French president can bestow on a counterpart.
Asked by the press after a European summit in Brussels on the night from Thursday to Friday, he explained that this distinction was “an element of justice and recognition of our country” with respect to the Ukrainian president.
Awarded by Jacques Chirac in 2006
But the informal ceremony of awarding the Legion of Honor to Volodymyr Zelensky at the Elysée, of which Emmanuel Macron had tweeted a video, has revived demands from those who demand that France withdraw this distinction from Vladimir Putin.
In 2006, Jacques Chirac presented the Russian president with the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor. This decision immediately raised a controversy. In particular, the Reporters Without Borders organization had tried in court, but to no avail, to deprive the master of the Kremlin of it.
Referring to a “symbolic but important issue”, President Macron said: “I do not forbid myself anything (…) but it is not a decision I made today.”
These decisions “always make sense and I think you have to appreciate the right moment to make them.”
Source: BFM TV
