What’s behind Macron’s ‘hardened stance’ on the Russia-Ukraine war?

The French president has adopted a bellicose stance in recent months, suggesting troops could be sent to Ukraine to fight Russia.

Soon after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, French President Emmanuel Macron sought to help resolve the conflict diplomatically.

During the war’s first summer, Macron said it was important that Moscow was not humiliated and that a European security order including Russia should be established.

But since last year, Macron has been drastically shifting towards what has been described as a hawkish foreign policy.

At a conference in Paris last month, the French president said a deployment of Western troops to fight Russia on the ground in Ukraine should not be ruled out, a suggestion that angered Russian President Vladimir Putin and was dismissed by Ukraine’s main allies.

While speaking in Prague on March 5, Macron declared that Europeans can’t be “cowards” when countering Moscow.