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Comment by petcat | Hacker News Reader

> salivating at the thought to prove to our EU neighbors how strong we meant it when we said we would accept to oppose the US in case of military attack and I think they knew we may actually mean it and not back down when it start

No offense to France, I don't really care one way or another, but didn't Macron also say he would deploy French troops in Ukraine? Where are those troops? Surely Ukraine is an "EU neighbor". They're currently suffering from an actual aggressor (Putin), not merely theoretical (Trump).

France says a lot of things.

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> didn't Macron also say he would deploy French troops in Ukraine?

AFAIK, he said he didn’t rule out doing that while the war was ongoing (https://edition.cnn.com/2024/02/27/europe/france-macron-troo...), and he signed a declaration of intent to do that if a peace deal with Russia is made (https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c17zee20qpzo)

Neither are what you imply he said.

> he signed a declaration of intent to do that if a peace deal with Russia is made

Interesting. Thanks for letting me know a Ukraine-Russia peace deal will never be signed.

That’s a pretty childish take on a serious subject.

No, it’s a very strong indicator that a peace deal will never be signed until unconditional surrender. Because concerns about NATO troops in Ukraine is main reason why Russia started this.

Claimed reason.

If Russia is so afraid, perhaps they would be open to a peace deal guaranteed by NATO troops stationed on their ground?

That's literally what they don't want... so how does what you said make sense?

Putin said this, but he says a lot of things which are not true.

Regardless, his sucessor may be more relaxed. Especially considering how badly it went even without Ukraine having NATO membership.

Yes, they don't want that. Yet they still keep claiming fear as their excuse for aggression. Pathetic.

> didn't Macron also say he would deploy French troops in Ukraine?

No he did not, he said he refused to rule it out: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/27/french-preside...

So I would recommend making sure to inform yourself properly rather than assuming what you read (or thought you read) is correct

> Surely Ukraine is an "EU neighbor". They're currently suffering from an actual aggressor (Putin), not merely theoretical (Trump).

But as you said, they're NOT EU, not in an official military alliance with France. If you cannot see the difference between the two situation, I can't make it any clearer for you.

If you're saying "we should do the same for those that are out that for those that are in", what you are saying is "being in has no purpose, why take the commitment". I believe your point of view is as wrong as can be.

> The situation in Ukraine, which has been under invasion by Russian troops for the past two years, was deteriorating. The war was getting bogged down. "In any case, in the coming year, I'm going to have to send guys to Odesa," said the president before a handful of guests. [1]

This was 2+ years ago and in the years since Russia has captured even more territory and is now bombarding Kyiv. And still no French troops.

Again, France says a lot of things.

[1] https://www.lemonde.fr/en/politics/article/2024/03/14/war-in...

Read up on game theory. This was just tit for tat. At that time Russia openly contemplated invading EU countries.

Well, you'll notice how Russia just ignored what Macron said and proceeded with their attempted conquest of Ukraine anyway. Because it's just "game theory". It's just "tit for tat".

Everyone knows France says a lot of things.

You have events completly backward, Russia was already invading when Macron said it. If you can't even get years in the right order you're not really arguing in good faith.

The point is that Russia didn't just turn around and go home when Macron threatened to send French troops to Ukraine. Because everyone knew they weren't actually going to do it. And they didn't.

Did you notice they also haven't invaded other countries so far? And that France now supports Ukraine's long range strikes?

You're bad at noticing the tits for each tat.

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