Macron’s dual position towards Russia

According to the report of the international group Tasnim news agency, newspaper ” In an article, Berliner Zeitung discussed the double game of French President Emmanuel Macron regarding the anti-Russian sanctions and wrote: France is taking a strict stance on the war in Ukraine, but at the same time, it is increasing its imports of liquefied natural gas from this country. It gives.

This article continues: Right at the beginning of Russia’s attack on Ukraine, French President Emmanuel Macron sided with Ukraine. But while France is still loudly protesting Russia’s military attack, imports of Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) to the country are increasing.

This Statistics are from the latest data from the Center for Clean Energy and Air Research (CREA). Accordingly, in the first three months of this year, France has imported more Russian LNG than any EU member compared to last year. It is said that since the beginning of this year, France has paid a total of 600 million euros to Russia for this purpose. In this regard, he told Politico: “It is not possible for France to take a tough position against Russia on the one hand and pay huge amounts for Russian gas on the other hand.” The growth of France’s gas trade with Russia comes as Macron has taken a tougher stance in recent weeks in support of Ukraine.

At the end of February, Macron announced that they will do everything so that Russia does not win in Ukraine. In this regard, he did not reject the deployment of NATO forces to this country, which caused a lot of noise in Europe. At that time, Olaf Schultz, the chancellor of Germany, opposed the French president in this regard. Long-term contracts with Russia indicate that they are legally difficult to terminate. But critics argue that Paris could do more to reduce its purchases from Russia, blaming energy company TotalEnergies for its inaction.

One Officials from the French Ministry of Energy admitted to Politico in this regard: “This is not an easy issue. Referring to the long-term contracts that Total Energy has signed, which forces it to buy LNG from Russia, he said: “If we continue to pay for the gas we don’t import, there is no point.

This article continues: But France is not the only country that does not give up Russian LNG. Shipping data shows that at least nine EU countries continue to trade with Russia. Although Russian LNG accounted for only five percent of EU gas consumption in 2024, EU members paid Russia more than eight billion euros for these exports. This is obtained from the new CREA report.

Accordingly, France both in the absolute volume of imports this year, a total of 1.5 million tons, and in the increase in purchases of For the same period as last year, it is the leader. After France, the biggest buyers of Russian LNG in the EU are Belgium, Spain and the Netherlands. All of them have announced that they want to reduce this purchase, of course, with close cooperation. Past said: The only way forward is a common approach to reduce or ban these imports. He added: We need this as soon as possible. Lithuania even proposed a total ban on Russian LNG at the summit.

But France showed restraint at the summit, instead defending its continued purchases from Russia. French Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire told lawmakers this month that eventually ending France’s dependence on Russian gas should be done gradually to avoid too severe an impact on the market and price increases.

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