French President Emmanuel Macron has urged the Islamist regime in Tehran to demonstrate “restraint” from retaliating in response to the American bombings of three nuclear sites in Iran over the weekend.
Warning that the situation in the Middle East could spiral into “uncontrolled escalation”, President Macron said on Sunday evening that Iran must show the “greatest restraint” and to “allow a return to diplomatic channels.”
While he did not specifically condemn the strikes from the Trump administration, Macron said that “no strictly military response can produce the desired effects,” Le Figaro reported.
“The resumption of diplomatic and technical discussions is the only way to achieve the goal we all seek, which is that Iran cannot acquire nuclear weapons, but also that there is no uncontrolled escalation in the region,” the French president said.
Paris was quick to distance itself from the strikes, with Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot saying Sunday morning that France “did not participate in these strikes or in their planning”.
Macron, who travelled to Norway on Monday, will chair a defence council meeting on Tuesday in Paris ahead of the upcoming NATO summit at The Hague on Wednesday. According to the Élysée Palace, the meeting on Tuesday will focus on “the work of de-escalation” and the “search for a diplomatic path to guarantee control of Iran’s nuclear and ballistic program.”
Meanwhile, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz defended the American strikes on the Iranian nuclear sites during a meeting in Berlin on Monday of the Federation of German Industries (BDI).
Merz said he had “no reason to criticise what America did last weekend,” noting that it was clear that Iran was seeking to develop nuclear weapons. The Trump administration’s mission was “not without risk,” Merz said, “but leaving things as they were was not an option either.”
The German chancellor also defended the recent strikes on Iran from Israel, saying: “For us, and for me personally, there is also no reason to criticise what Israel began a week ago.”
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte also came out on Monday in defence of the American bombings of Iran’s top nuclear facilities, while rejecting suggestions from the press that the strikes amounted to a violation of international law.
Rutte’s press conference preceded the increasingly significant NATO summit at The Hague on Wednesday in the Netherlands.
In addition to focusing on the wars in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, the summit is also expected to see alliance members agree to President Donald Trump’s demand to increase their defence spending to five per cent of GDP within the next decade.
The NATO chief said that agreement — which excludes socialist Spain — will represent a “quantum leap” in NATO’s abilities and hailed the agreement as “ambitious, historic and fundamental to securing our future.”
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