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by Jerome RIVET
Agence France-Presse
PARIS, France (AFP) – Emmanuel Macron’s presidency started with an invite for Russian chief Vladimir Putin to the splendid former royal palace at Versailles. As his time period attracts to a detailed, European leaders are assembly in the identical place to debate Putin’s battle on Ukraine.
Though the 27 European Union authorities chiefs placed on smiling faces on the pink carpet, it was clear from their phrases that the outbreak of battle in Europe was deeply unsettling.
Macron himself expressed “pessimism” concerning the final result of the battle, and none dared predict a swift finish to the invasion the Russian military launched towards its neighbour two weeks in the past.
A grave ambiance stuffed the Salon d’Hercule close to the previous royal residences because the 27 gathered round a convention desk, contrasting sharply with the ornate marble decor and huge ceiling canvas depicting Greek mythological hero Hercules.
After their working session, Ukraine shall be prime of the agenda at dinner within the baroque Corridor of Mirrors, the place the Treaty of Versailles put the seal on a reshaped Europe after World Struggle I.
Macron determined to host his European counterparts on the palace of Solar King Louis XIV earlier than Putin attacked Ukraine on February 24, as the positioning is near Paris and comparatively easy to safe.
However the authorities say they’re conscious of the gulf between their luxurious environment and the awful pictures from the entrance line, the place cities have been shelled and the mass flight of civilians has drawn compassion from throughout Europe.
“This isn’t a celebration. We have now to be sober throughout this era,” France’s Europe Minister Clement Beaune instructed France Inter radio.
‘Showroom’ for France
The European summit comes one month earlier than the primary spherical of France’s presidential election, when Macron hopes to safe a second five-year time period.
As French voters wrestle with accelerating inflation stoked by the battle, particularly in power prices, that makes avoiding the impression of elite extravagance all of the extra urgent.
The distinction is sharp with 2017, when Macron guided Putin by way of the palace, displaying off big work of famend French army victories within the Corridor of Battles.
On the time, he hoped to resume relations with Moscow after years of stress over Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine and continued preventing within the jap Donbas area.
Macron instructed reporters on the time that he hoped to “de-escalate” tensions, partly by way of conferences of the so-called “Normandy Format” bringing collectively Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany.
Sanctions would contribute “nothing in any respect” to resolving the disaster, Putin mentioned through the go to.
Macron has used Versailles extra intensively than his predecessors in his five-year time period, urgent it into service as an instrument of French delicate energy.
As “a spot of each royal and republican energy”, Versailles is “a showroom of the French creativeness. It fascinates individuals,” an individual near him mentioned in 2018.
In addition to Putin, Macron has hosted then-crown prince Naruhito, now Emperor of Japan, on the palace.
He has twice gathered Senate and Nationwide Meeting lawmakers there for particular congresses and usually invited chiefs of multinational corporations in a bid to draw jobs to France.
© Agence France-Presse
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