The French capital city of Paris saw a few dozen activists staging a protest on May 28 to show their attitude to the arrival of President Vladimir Putin there at the invitation of the French head of state Emmanuel Macron. It was to be the first bilateral meeting at this level after Macron’s electoral victory; it was to be held at Versailles near Paris as part of an exhibition dedicated to the 300th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between France and Russia.
Ukrainian journalist Alla Lazareva published on her Facebook page a set of photos from the event. The posters held by its participants included, among others, #FreeSushchenko and “Putin, Gaddafi is awaiting you.”
According to Lazareva, the event attracted about 80 people, including Ukrainians, Syrians, Moldovans, Georgians, Lithuanians, as well as “native French.” The participants intended to draw attention “to the visitor being a criminal and murderer.” Relatives of Ukrainians imprisoned by Russia, human rights activists, and civic figures wrote an open letter to the French president urging him to demand that the Russian president free political prisoners and to strengthen sanctions against the Kremlin over its “persecution, illegal detention, and torture of dissidents in the occupied territories.”
Photo from Fikret GABIBOV’s Facebook page
At the time of this issue going to print, the meeting continued. Therefore, it was unknown how it ended. Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the main topics of the talks were to be “fighting terrorism” and bilateral relations. Meanwhile, Macron stated at the summit of G7 held in Sicily on May 26-27 that he would have a “demanding dialog” with Putin, involving no “concessions” on the Kremlin’s actions in Ukraine and Syria.
