‘We favor respect to bullies,’ Macron says | EUROtoday

French President Emmanuel Macron opened his speech Tuesday in Davos with a joke, saying “It’s a time of peace, stability and predictability,” to laughs from the chamber.

“It’s clear we are reaching a time of instability, of imbalances,” he mentioned, citing international shifts in direction of autocracy from democracy, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and extra wars around the globe — “even though I understand a few of them were fixed,” in a dig at US President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly boasted of ending a number of wars since getting into workplace final 12 months.

Macron wore sun shades after his current battle with a watch an infection and addressed the chamber in English.

The French president warned towards “a world where international law is trampled underfoot,” and a world the place the sturdy do what they are going to whereas the weak endure what they have to.

In reference to the newest disputes about Greenland, Macron described the specter of additional sanctions from the US in direction of Europe as “fundamentally unacceptable, even more so when they are used as leverage against territorial sovereignty.”

He mentioned he wished to rule out two approaches to the brand new threats on the planet, firstly to “passively accept the law of the strongest,” saying it did not make sense to just accept “a sort of new colonial approach.”

But Macron additionally warned towards adopting “a purely moral posture,” saying this path “would condemn us to marginalization and powerlessness.”

“France must defend effective multilateralism,” he mentioned, as his authorities takes up the G7 presidency in 2026.

“We do prefer respect to bullies,” he mentioned in direction of the tip of his handle. “We do prefer science to conspiracy. We do prefer rule of law to brutality.”