French President Emmanuel Macron criticized revisionist countries that want to impose themselves by force under the guise of defending their spheres of influence, Agence France-Presse reported, BTA reported.
“We are facing the challenge of revisionist countries that want to impose themselves in the name of spheres of influence and spheres of coercion“, Macron said in his speech, opening the session of the Shangri-La Defense and Security Dialogue Forum in Singapore.
In his speech, Macron also said China should have prevented North Korea from sending its military to Europe to fight on Russia's side.
"If China does not want NATO to be involved in the East Asian region and in Asia, it should have clearly prevented North Korea from being involved in European territory", Macron said.
Regarding Gaza, the French leader said that if Western countries abandon Gaza and let Israel act, they risk losing the trust of the rest of the world.
"This is why we reject double standards", Macron said and assured that this also applies to the conflict in Ukraine.
"If we consider that Russia can be allowed to seize part of the territory of Ukraine without restrictions, without coercion, without a reaction from the world order, what will people say about what could happen in Taiwan", Macron also said.
The French president also called on to build new coalitions for free trade and for an order based on the rule of law. These coalitions must unite, in his opinion, all countries that do not want to be collateral victims of the decisions taken by the superpowers the United States and China, he added.
"Let us build new alliances between Europe and Asia, based on our common norms and our common principles", Macron stressed.
"I really think that such an approach can allow us to convince the rest of the world to join us because of our importance and our reliability", he said.
Macron said that the division between the two superpowers - the United States and China - is the main risk that the world now faces, Reuters reported.
"Let me be clear, France is a friend and ally of the United States and France is a friend and collaborator– even if sometimes we have disagreements and to compete – with China“, Macron reported.
But according to him, dividing the world into two superpowers leads to a choice of whose side to take. “If we do this, we will kill the global order and we will methodically destroy all the institutions that we created after the Second World War in order to preserve peace and cooperate on health, climate, human rights and other issues“, Macron added.
He added that Asia and Europe have a common interest in preventing the disintegration of the global order.
“The time of non-alignment is undoubtedly over, but the time for coalitions of action has come, and this requires countries capable of acting together to acquire all the necessary means to achieve this“, Macron said.