French President Emmanuel Macron pointed to the risks Europe faces in the conflict over Taiwan in an interview published on Monday following a three-day state visit to China.
“The worse thing would be to think that we Europeans must become followers on this topic and take our cue from the U.S. agenda and a Chinese overreaction,” he said.
The interview was conducted earlier on Friday and published by the French newspaper Les Echos.
“Europe should avoid falling into the trap of being caught in a foreign crisis.
“Europe faced the threat of becoming a vassal between the United States and China, while it could instead be a third pole,” Macron said.
The French president’s comments drew a heated reaction in Germany from across the political spectrum.
Norbert Röttgen, a foreign policy spokesman for the opposition conservative CDU, told the mass-circulation Bild newspaper: “Macron appears to have taken leave of his senses.”
He accused him of dividing and weakening Europe with naïve and dangerous rhetoric.
Bijan Djir-Sarai, general secretary of the liberal FDP, a junior government partner, said the position taken up by Macron was not a sound strategy for Europe, as the US and Europe should work together.
Speaking to the Tagesspiegel, Metin Hakverdi of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s centre-left SPD said: “It is a serious mistake to allow ourselves as the West do be divided in our dealings with Beijing of all things.”
Dietmar Bartsch of the hard-left Die Linke opposition party backed Macron’s aim of European strategic autonomy, as long as it was linked to becoming a force for peace in the world.
