Jean-Noel Barrot: France made efforts to prevent the US from forcing Ukraine to surrender

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said that France has facilitated "constructive negotiations between Ukraine and the United States" to prevent "Kyiv from being forced to surrender."

Source. He said this on the LCI TV channel.

"The risk we faced was the gradual cessation of American support for Ukraine," he noted.

A few days earlier, the French publication L'Express wrote that preventing the Trump administration from inducing Ukraine to make concessions to Russia had become President Emmanuel Macron's main strategy.

“Emmanuel Macron’s proactive efforts to support Ukraine are being hampered by the American president, who appears to be in no hurry to impose “large-scale sanctions” against Russia, which France and its European allies have been calling for since the visit to Kyiv on May 10. (…) At the highest levels of power, President Macron’s strategy is believed to have worked so far, “not allowing” Donald Trump to “push Ukraine to surrender.” However, efforts to end the war have since stalled,” the publication wrote.

Background. The day before, Macron, speaking in the British parliament, said that the creation of the “Coalition of the Willing” was a signal that Europe would never abandon Ukraine in its defense against Russian attacks.

He expressed gratitude to Great Britain, which from the first day of the Russian invasion, “and even before that, became Ukraine’s closest ally.”

Earlier Politico wrote that Starmer and Macron have different approaches in communicating with Trump, which hinders negotiations on Ukraine. London places a key role on security guarantees from the US, Paris wants more independence from the States.