"Europe must reduce its dependence on the United States and avoid being drawn into a confrontation between China and the United States over Taiwan", French President Emmanuel Macron said in an interview with several media outlets on his way back from a three-day state visit to China.

Speaking to Brussels-based "Politico" and two French journalists after spending about six hours in talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Macron recalled his vision of "strategic autonomy" for Europe, which he developed in 2017 at the Sorbonne.

Then he developed the view of a "strong Europe" capable of leading on the world stage with a common political, economic and social model and strategically autonomous from the United States.

Politico quoted him as saying that the "big risk" facing Europe is that it "gets into crises that are not ours, which prevents it from building its strategic autonomy."

"The paradox would be that, panic-stricken, we believe that we are simply followers of America. The question the Europeans have to answer is 'is it in our interest to accelerate (the crisis) in Taiwan?' No. The worse would be to think that we Europeans should become followers of this theme and take a cue from the US agenda and China's overreaction," he said.

"The Europeans cannot solve the crisis in Ukraine; how can we credibly say to Taiwan, 'be careful, if you do something wrong, we will be there'? If you really want to increase tensions, this is the way to do it," says the French president.

"If the tension between the two superpowers heats up... we will not have the time and resources to finance our strategic autonomy and we will become vassals," said Emmanuel Macron.

The French president says that Europe has increased its energy and weapons dependence on the US and should now focus on boosting the European defense industry, writes "Politico".

In the interview, he suggested that Europe reduce its dependence on the "extraterritoriality of the US dollar", a key policy goal of both Moscow and Beijing.

"Politico" writes that the French president did not comment on the issue of security guarantees that the United States gives to its European allies, who rely heavily on American defense aid amid Europe's first major land war since World War II.

The publication indicated that some of the president's most extreme comments on the matter were removed by his press office before publication.

Follow Novinite.com on Twitter and Facebook

Write to us at editors@novinite.com

Информирайте се на Български - Novinite.bg