French President Emmanuel Macron said on Thursday that the United States was “breaking free from international rules” and “gradually turning away” from some of its allies.
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Macron delivered his annual speech to French ambassadors at the Elysee Palace as European powers are scrambling to come up with a coordinated response to US assertive foreign policy in the Western hemisphere following Washington’s capture of Venezuela’s leader Nicolas Maduro and Donald Trump’s designs on Greenland.
“The United States is an established power, but one that is gradually turning away from some of its allies and breaking free from international rules that it was still promoting recently,” Macron told ambassadors at the Elysee Palace.
“Multilateral institutions are functioning less and less effectively,” Macron added.
“We are living in a world of great powers with a real temptation to divide up the world.”
Macron spoke after US special forces snatched Maduro and his wife from Venezuela on Saturday in a lightning raid and whisked them to New York, sparking condemnation the United States was undermining international law.
In the wake of his military intervention in Venezuela, President Trump set off alarm bells in Europe by repeating his insistence that he wants to take control of Greenland.
Trump has repeatedly refused to rule out using force to seize the strategic Arctic island, prompting shock and anger from controlling power Denmark and other longstanding European allies.
Copenhagen has warned that any attack would spell the end of the NATO alliance.
– ‘Reinvest fully in the UN’ –
The French leader said “global governance” was key in a time when “every day people wonder whether Greenland is going to be invaded” as well as whether “Canada will face the threat of becoming the 51st state”.
He said it was the right moment to “reinvest fully in the United Nations, as we note its largest shareholder no longer believes in it”.
The White House on Wednesday flagged the US exit from 66 global organisations and treaties — roughly half affiliated with the United Nations — it identified as “contrary to the interests of the United States.”
Macron said Europe must protect its interests and urged the “consolidation” of European regulation of the tech sector.
He stressed the importance of safeguarding academic independence and hailed “the possibility of having a controlled information space where opinions can be exchanged completely freely, but where choices are not made by the algorithms of a few.”
Brussels has adopted a powerful legal arsenal aimed at reining in tech giants — namely through its Digital Markets Act (DMA) which covers competition and the Digital Services Act (DSA) on content moderation.
Washington has denounced the tech rules as an attempt to “coerce” American social media platforms into censoring viewpoints they oppose.
“The DSA and DMA are two regulations that must be defended,” Macron said.
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