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Macron turns against Nato's core mission: "Nato is an organisation of collective defense, against whom? … Is, as I hear sometimes, our enemy today Russia? Is it China? Is it the task of the Atlantic Alliance to designate them enemies? I don’t think so."
"Our joint enemy for all of us, in the midst of the Alliance, it seems to me, is the terrorism which has attacked all our countries. It is against the terrorist groups that the French soldiers fight in the Sahel“ https://www.elysee.fr/emmanuel-macron/2019/11/28/declaration-du-president-de-la-republique-avec-jens-stoltenberg-secretaire-general-de-lotan
This is entirely in line with his speech to the ambassadors and the Economist interview. For Macron, Russia is not an enemy, not a threat. And tensions are just based on an misunderstanding, and the fact that Europe allowed itself to be seen by Russia as America's "Trojan horse".
Yet the entire raison d'être of Nato in the last years has been defense and deterrence against Russia.
With live English translation: https://www.euronews.com/2019/11/28/watch-live-emmanuel-macron-hold-press-conference-with-nato-s-jens-stoltenberg (hat tip @KateEads)
This is a mission -- defense and deterrence against Russia -- that at least half of Europe considers vital for its security. A mission that France used to support in the last years.
If only the French view of defense matters, and if other European countries' interests and concerns are not even seen as legitimate, then the idea of a common European house is under threat.
