• 4:16 a.m .: Macron does not rule out withdrawing the Legion of Honor from Putin

Emmanuel Macron did not rule out withdrawing the Legion of Honor awarded by his predecessor Jacques Chirac to Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2006, while explaining that he wanted to choose "the right time to do it".

The Head of State presented Wednesday evening to Volodymyr Zelensky, passing through Paris during his second trip outside 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 award to a counterpart.

Asked by the press after a European summit in Brussels on the night of Thursday to Friday, he explained that this distinction was "an element of justice and recognition of our country" with regard to the Ukrainian president.

But the informal ceremony to award the Legion of Honor to Volodymyr Zelensky at the Élysée, of which Emmanuel Macron had tweeted a video, has revived the demands of 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.

The organization Reporters Without Borders had notably tried in court, but in vain, to deprive the master of the Kremlin of it.

Referring to a "symbolic but important question", President Macron said: "I do not forbid myself anything (...) but it is not a decision that I made today".

These decisions “are always meaningful and I think you have to appreciate the right moment to make them”.

  • 3:16 a.m .: Macron deems it impossible to deliver planes “in the coming weeks”

French President Emmanuel Macron said overnight from Thursday to Friday that fighter planes requested by Ukraine could "under no circumstances" be "delivered in the coming weeks", ensuring that he favored "more useful" weapons and "faster".

"I exclude absolutely nothing," assured the French president in Brussels to the press about deliveries of combat aircraft, after a European summit in the presence of his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky.

But "it does not correspond to the needs today", he estimated.

  • 1:26 a.m .: Zelensky to open a conference of sports ministers on the presence of Russians at the Olympics

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will speak on Friday during a videoconference bringing together sports ministers from several countries on the presence of Russian athletes at the 2024 Olympics in Paris, according to the PA agency.

The Ukrainian leader, who will speak at the opening of this conference organized by London, has repeatedly called for the exclusion of Russian and Belarusian athletes from the next Olympic Games, calling again this week to "protect the Olympic charter".

With AFP and Reuters

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