France says Russia can be represented but president will not be invited because of war in Ukraine
Russia will be invited to send representatives to an international ceremony commemorating the 80th anniversary of D-day – but not Vladimir Putin, the French organisers have announced.
The Élysée is reported to have accepted that the country should be represented but said its leader is not welcome because of Moscow’s ongoing war on Ukraine.
“In view of the circumstances, President Putin will not be invited to take part in the commemorations of the Normandy landings,” the Liberation Mission organising committee said.
He most probably would now. During the first stage of the invasion, Macron was amenable to Putin and agreed to meet in person. He’s totally flipped 180 now though, knowing he got played like a damn fool for trusting him.
When the first stage of the invasion started, Macron was the president of Europe. So he had to play his role and present the view of the european leaders, even if it was not aligned with our internal views.
I don’t like him, didn’t vote for him the first time (2nd time i did vote for him to avoid marine le pen election, founded by russian banks btw…) but you can’t use his behavior (amenable), trying to avoid escalation, as “yeah i’m your buddy putin, go ahead” or "i totally trust you’.
Our head of intelligence was fired because HE didn’t present the invasion as realistic (based on normal logic it really silly)… but the whole intel community was fully aware of putin desires. President included. He knew Putin was playing with him. Everybody knew.
But he had to play his role, as EU leader at this time.
Unfortunately the average person struggles to understand a Tic-Tac-Toe aspect of politics let alone the two-dimensional chess of politics.
Attempting to apply anything resembling personal values to Macron is an error.
If you look up “amoral opportunist” in the dictionary, there’s a picture of Macron smiling as smugly as is humanly possible.