French Finance Minister Backs Macron on US-China Stance

- French Finance Minister Backs Macron on US-China Stance
by https://www.rt.com/
The president was “absolutely right” to demand European independence, Bruno Le Maire has declared
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French President Emmanuel Macron was correct to distance himself from Washington’s confrontational policies on China, Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Tuesday. Macron’s frequent assertions of European “autonomy,” however, have been strictly rhetorical to date.
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Speaking to Politico while on a trip to China last week, Macron insisted that Europe must avoid “taking our cue from the US agenda” and stay neutral on the issue of Taiwan. “Europe faces a great risk,” he said, if it “gets caught up in crises that are not ours.”
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Macron “is perfectly right to demand European independence and sovereignty as he has been doing since 2017,” Le Maire told France’s Europe 1 radio station on Tuesday. “We are obviously allies of the United States,” he continued. “We share the same values, we share a lot of common economic interests. But just because we are allies of the United States does not mean that we have to be against China.”
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Paris has an economic interest in avoiding confrontation with Beijing. During Macron’s visit, seven major French companies, including Airbus, energy firm EDF, and shipbuilder CMA-CGM, signed or extended contracts with Chinese firms.
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