“This is not our interest”: France no longer wants to discuss with “Russian officials,” says Sejournet

The dialogue between Paris and Moscow has been interrupted. “It is no longer in France’s interests to discuss with Russian officials,” French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejournet said Monday following a recent telephone conversation between Russian and French army ministers on Monday.

“Today it is not in our interests to discuss with Russian officials, since the press releases and messages published are false,” Stéphane Sejournet told media France 24 and RFI from Abidjan, where the minister was finishing a tour of Africa.

Following a call on Wednesday between Defense Ministers Sébastien Lecornu and Sergei Shoigu aimed at providing the Russians with “useful information” about the attack in Moscow, French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday condemned the Russians’ “pretentious and threatening comments.”

In its report on the interview published in Paris, Russia said it “hopes” that French intelligence services were not involved in the attack, which killed 144 people on March 22. Paris refutes the speculation.

Trust needs to be restored

Before we can talk to the Russians again, “perhaps we need to first establish trust and perhaps first of all get developments on military territory in Ukraine so that relations can be restarted. Today this is not the case,” said Stéphane Sejournet.

Emmanuel Macron justified the initiative for an exchange of views between French and Russian ministers, the first since October 2022, by the fact that France had precisely “useful information” to convey “the origins and organization of this attack”, which was announced by the Islamic State (IS). . ) organization.

According to Stéphane Sejournet, the “long tradition of cooperation with Russia on terrorism” has now reached a dead end. “In fact, it is not continuing because it was a proposal, and the Russian communique actually, in Russian, suggests that we should not have cooperation,” he concluded.