France’s ambassador to Canada says the Canadian government must choose between fully committing to the United States or expanding its ties and becoming more closely linked to Europe.

“The issue of America’s engagement abroad presents more than ever an opportunity for Europe, France and Canada to play a role together,” Ambassador Michel Miraillet said in a speech to the Council on International Relations of Montreal (CORIM) on Tuesday.

The ambassador argued that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was the culmination of a decade of work by Moscow and Beijing to weaken democracies.

In his view, Russia and China were selling patriotic nationalism to their citizens while they built up their military capabilities and engagement in developing countries in anticipation of the demise of a western world. “Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping share the same hatred, including hatred of the West, which they want to weaken and push back, and hatred of democracy, which they say leads to decadence and the disintegration of nations. They were also convinced of the inevitability of wiping the United States off the international scene,” the French ambassador said.

Michel Miraillet, citing the presidency of George W. Bush without directly referring to the war in Iraq, noted that the Obama administration had decided not to intervene in Syria nor Russia’s 2014 takeover of Ukraine’s Crimea region to delay.

“The retreat from the world stage, initiated under Obama and amplified under Trump, proved disastrous, creating a vacuum that was quickly filled by rival powers and opening up a field for expansion for Russia,” Michel Miraillet said. “If there was any fear that Joe Biden would move in the same direction, especially in Afghanistan, let us agree that he took a resolute and courageous stance on the Ukraine conflict. »

In his opinion, Vladimir Putin hopes that Americans will elect an isolationist president in the fall of 2024 and that Europeans, out of respect for values ​​and democracy, will choose the comfort of Russian oil rather than the difficulty of higher energy bills.

military spending

Ambassador Miraillet also noted the recent increase in military spending by France, which is a major arms producer and is pushing for more arms production on the continent. Canada needs to show a similar commitment to global security, he said.

“Canada is deploying a weak defensive effort; he is forgetting a bit about his previous commitments, the courage he has shown in all major conflicts, as well as in peacekeeping operations. »

In this regard, Mr. Miraillet would like Canada to deepen its partnership with countries like France, just as Australia has formed alliances with South Korea and Japan. He reminds us that the world today is organized around new axes of power, with the Sino-Russian pact on one side, and that democracies should not be aligned solely with American interests.

“There is a unique opportunity for Canada and France to act together, which is to step out of their comfort zone and have a great destiny beyond the games of domestic politics,” specified the French ambassador.

He argued that France would like to partner with Canada on essential minerals for green technologies, small-scale nuclear technology and hydrogen projects that can help electrify public transport.

He noted that France and Canada are often the only ones who consistently defend individual rights in the UN and G20 fora, “towards the countries of the South, which are often culturally hostile and also increasingly impermeable to the interests of the individual”. .

“Democracies are superior to all other systems, the ambassador said, on one condition: that all affected citizens can be persuaded to better defend them. The danger is that we are blinded by the risk-denial, comfort and habits of our Canadian and French societies. »

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