Macron's plan for Ukraine: limited one-month truce and deployment of European troops

ParisThe day after the summit of leaders from fifteen European countries and Canada to draw up a peace plan for Ukraine, the French proposal – which does not yet have the backing of the United Kingdom – is taking shape. French President Emmanuel Macron has revealed in an interview in The Figaro The idea on the table is a first one-month truce that would only affect air and sea attacks as well as attacks on energy infrastructure. The truce would therefore not apply to ground combat.

Macron justifies limiting the ceasefire to sea and air attacks because the front line is unreachable and would make it difficult to verify that it is being complied with. With the truce, it would be a matter of seeing if Russia really has the will to respect peace agreements. "A truce only by air and sea can be measured. The current front is the equivalent of the distance from Paris to Budapest. In the event of a ceasefire, it would be very difficult to verify that it is being respected," the President of the Republic explained to The Figaro. "The truce would allow us to check whether Putin is in good faith. It is a way of verifying that Russia really wants to end the war," said French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot on Monday.

In this first phase of the truce, European troops would not be deployed in Ukraine, but they would be in a second phase. "There will be no European troops on Ukrainian territory in the coming weeks," Macron promised. Europe is demanding that the United States participate in the deployment of the peacekeeping force, as a guarantee that Russia will not attack again, but Washington does not seem willing to join in at the moment. In any case, Russian President Vladimir Putin flatly rejects the deployment of European troops on Ukrainian territory. Among the EU's partners there are also countries that have expressed reservations about this possibility..

No deal with the UK

According to Macron, the plan was agreed with London, but the British government pointed out on Monday that no agreement has been closed. The British Secretary of State for Defence, Luke Pollard, has explained that there are "different options" on the table and that "more in-depth" talks with other European capitals will be needed to agree on the peace plan. "A one-month truce has not been agreed," Pollard said.

The European peace plan that Europe is trying to agree on is The response to the decision of US President Donald Trump to exclude Kiev and European countries from peace negotiations in Ukraine. Trump, who last Friday had in the Oval Office An unprecedented clash with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, reproaches Ukraine for not accepting an unconditional ceasefire. The French president believes that a "de-escalation" between Trump and Zelensky is possible and, in fact, Macron has spoken by phone with the tenant of the White House "three times in the last three days" to try to lower the tension.

Humiliate Ukraine

The US president's alignment with his Russian counterpart is causing trembling in Ukraine and Europe. But the Europeans are not prepared to be left out of the negotiations or to allow Trump to agree on a peace plan with Russia that would falsely end the conflict. They maintain that a lasting and fair peace will only be possible with the support of Kiev and Europe. According to the report, The Figaro After his conversation with the President of the Republic, Macron believes that a ceasefire signed between the United States and Russia "will seek above all to humiliate Ukraine." Now the Europeans, with Paris and London at the forefront, are moving to prevent this. "We want peace, but not at any price," warned the French president.

Macron believes that European countries' investment in defence should reach 3% or 3.5% of GDP. Comparatively, Russia spends 10% of GDP. The issue will be one of the central themes of the extraordinary European summit to be held on Thursday in Brussels and is one of the key challenges of the new world order, marked by the United States' distancing from Donald Trump from Europe and by a rapprochement with Russia. In this new context, Europe has assumed that Washington is no longer a reliable partner that guarantees its security and needs a strategy to avoid being so dependent militarily on the United States. "The Americans represent 30% of NATO. We will need ten years to become desensitised and invest massively at national and European level in defence," warns the French president.

According to the European security and defence expert Gesine Weber, there have been signs for years that Washington and Europe were growing apart, but the countries of the community bloc had not prepared themselves. "They have fallen into a deep sleep, reassured by the idea that Washington would continue to be a partner that Europe could count on to guarantee its security," says Weber, a researcher at the think tank Paris-based German Marshall Fund of the United States in an article in The World. Gesine Weber believes that Europe had come to terms with the fact that Europe would have to be defended with less support from the US, but had not thought that the Old Continent would have to be defended "without the US". Reality, however, imposes this paradigm shift.

European nuclear deterrence

The President of the Republic also wants to discuss the issue of nuclear deterrence at European level. Given the distance with the United States and the need for Europe to be more sovereign in terms of defence, France would be open to discussing whether French nuclear weapons could be used to defend European countries. One of the ideas floated by the French press is the possibility of placing nuclear weapons in other European countries, as the United States does. The idea has created controversy in France: Marine Le Pen's far right believes that France's nuclear deterrence capacity "cannot be shared".