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President Emmanuel Macron

Photo: Ludovic Marin / AFP

French President Emmanuel Macron has urged courage in view of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine.

“We are certainly approaching a moment in our Europe in which it is appropriate not to be cowardly,” Macron told the French community in the Czech Republic during a visit to Prague.

The war has returned to European soil.

France and the Czech Republic are aware of this.

You have to do justice to history and that takes courage.

“That, too, is our responsibility,” said the president.

Macron does not say who exactly he had in mind with his warning.

The Czech Republic is currently promoting a plan to buy weapons for Ukraine outside of Europe.

According to Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala, 15 countries are ready to join a corresponding initiative, including France.

Specifically, it is about purchasing around 800,000 pieces of ammunition - Pavel presented this idea in February at the security conference in Munich.

The plan is to provide a sum of 1.4 billion euros for this.

“We support this initiative and will contribute to it,” said Macron.

Prague expects Macron to specify France's involvement in talks with Fiala and Czech President Petr Pavel.

Macron caused a stir last week with a statement that the sending of Western soldiers to Ukraine should not be ruled out.

In the spirit of “strategic ambiguity,” Macron apparently wanted to keep the Kremlin in the dark about what measures the Europeans were prepared to take.

However, numerous alliance partners, including Chancellor Olaf Scholz, promptly rejected this possibility.

Baerbock meets his counterpart Séjourné in Paris

The government in Paris announced that it did not mean combat units.

Nevertheless, the differences of opinion displayed on the open stage once again made it clear how much German-French relations have suffered recently.

Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock tried to downplay the anger on Tuesday.

»Deep friendship and solidarity are not expressed in the fact that you always agree.

If you always agree, then something is wrong," she said about relations with France.

At midday, Baerbock wanted to travel to Paris for a work meeting with her French colleague Stéphane Séjourné.

The wiretapping scandal in the Bundeswehr is also likely to play a role.

There were no plans to inform the public after Baerbock's meeting with Séjourné.

slü/dpa/Reuters