French President Emmanuel Macron said Sunday that he has agreed with his U.S. counterpart, Joe Biden, to «fix» the consequences of U.S. policy on subsidies, after members of the French government criticized such economic policies.
Macron has assured that he raised with the US president his concerns about the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), a measure that encourages, for example, the production of semiconductors, and that the French president considers that they «favor the imbalance».
«We had a very good, frank and fruitful discussion (…). What we decided with President Biden is precisely to solve this problem. It is repairable», explained the French leader in an interview on the program ’60 Minutes’ of the CBS network.
«My goal was to say that it is urgent to raise this problem. I did. It was urgent to discuss it in depth (…), it is urgent to solve it. We can do it», he assured, before remarking that this state visit has had «many positive results».
The French president asserted that the «main interest» is to protect the middle classes, both in Paris and in Washington, as well as to confront China at the commercial level. «But the result of the recent decision (the IRA law) on this momentum, I would say, is bad for Europe,» he added.
«I think if the day after the conflict the result is to have a weaker Europe as a large part of its industry would have been simply killed, that will not be in the interest of the U.S. administration or society,» he has criticized.
PUTIN’S WAR CRIMES In another order of things, Macron has shown himself in favor of judging his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, for war crimes, although he has also bet on maintaining «direct contact» with him since «isolation is the worst thing» taking into account, he has said, the type of leader he is.
«What we have to do now is, first, to gather all the evidence of these war crimes,» said the French president, who pointed out that it is necessary to launch all available «legal initiatives» to bring Putin to justice.
However, he has put in value the importance of continuing to exhaust diplomatic channels with a Putin, he has said, with whom he holds regular talks. «I think the best way (…) Isolation is the worst thing, especially for such a leader,» Macron has said.
As far as the war is concerned, Macron believes that Putin not only made the mistake of launching such a conflict but also of underestimating the resilience of Ukrainians and the unity of their Western allies.
This war, he said, has meant «the death» of Putin’s political authority, who has decided to continue «creating deficits, instability and inflation» through higher energy and food prices as his only strategy.
Macron and Biden met last week in the first official visit to Washington by a foreign president since the start of the COVID-19 restrictions.
The visit began with an official reception at the White House in a meeting in which the two leaders wanted to claim each other as allies in a global context marked by challenges from other powers such as Moscow and Beijing.
