I've said from day one that our first mistake was signalling to Vladimir Putin early on that the west would not get involved on the ground. As far as I am concerned, that was tantamount to giving President Putin carte blanche to do pretty much what he wanted.
However, on February 26, in the wake of a conference that brought together representatives from 25 countries to take stock of the situation in Ukraine, French President Emmanuel Macron declared that he was not ruling out sending troops to Ukraine. Initially, it was thought that this was the result of the discussions that had taken place during the day, but we soon realized that many countries had dissociated themselves from this.
Do you think President Macron was trying to create some ambiguity in order to curb Vladimir Putin's ambitions?