"Nothing is prohibited in principle," replied Emmanuel Macron cautiously, questioned Monday in The Hague about the hypothesis of sending fighter planes to Ukraine to help it fight the Russian invasion.
The French president underlined "criteria" before any decision: a "request formulated" by Ukraine, that it "not be escalatory" and "not likely to touch Russian soil but to help the resistance effort " and that "it does not come to weaken the capacity of the French army".
"By definition, nothing is excluded," he said, while emphasizing that Ukrainians "are not making this demand today."
However, "it is in the light of these three criteria that we will continue to look on a case-by-case basis" the deliveries of military equipment, he added after having posed the same criteria for the possible sending of tanks Leclerc.
"It is according to the requests that are made but not according to the rumors that are made" that the decisions are taken, underlined the French head of state, specifying that the Ukrainian Minister of Defense, Oleksiï Reznikov, was expected Tuesday in Paris for talks with his counterpart Sébastien Lecornu.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte stressed for his part that there was "no taboo but that it would be a big step" if fighter planes were delivered to kyiv.
The Netherlands has not yet received a request from kyiv to this effect either, he said, approving the criteria set out by his French counterpart.
30/01/2023 23:09:52 - The Hague (AFP) - © 2023 AFP
