Paris (CNSNews.com) – French President Emmanuel Macron says he is considering stripping Russian President Vladimir Putin of one of France’s top honors, calling it a “symbolic but important question” in the light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
He made the comment after awarding Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy with the Légion d’Honneur at the Élysée palace in Paris last week, calling it a tribute to Ukraine and its people, and to Zelenskyy’s “courage” and “commitment.”
The decoration is the highest a French president can bestow on a foreign head of state or figure. Like Zelenskyy, Putin was awarded the Grand Cross of the Légion d’Honneur, the highest of five degrees of distinction for the order.
Macron told reporters that while he believes he has the right to revoke the award to the Russian president, such decisions should be taken at “the right moment.”
Putin received the award from then-President Jacques Chirac in 2006, at a time when relations between Russia and the West were significantly better than they are today.
Even so, the 2006 decision was a controversial one, and Reporters Without Borders unsuccessfully sought legal action to reverse the move.
“The questions of the dismantling of civil liberties in Russia, the muzzling of the press, or the policy of terror and zero information which prevails in Chechnya have not been the subject of any public declaration at the end of this visit,” the organization said after Putin’s September 2006 visit to the country, calling the decision to give him the top award “a shocking endorsement” of his policies.
“That a predator of freedom of the press should be elevated to the dignity of Grand Cross of the Légion d’Honneur is an insult to all those in Russia who fight for the defense of freedom of the press, freedom to be informed and for the existence of an effective democracy in this country,” the press freedom organization said.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov played down the significance of Macron’s remarks, telling reporters he doubted that “this will be a problem for President Putin” or that it would “become a priority issue.”
“Putin has other priority issues that Russian citizens are aware of,” said Peskov, adding that communication between Putin and Macron currently is “not very intense.”
Another controversial previous Légion d’Honneur recipient was Syrian President Bashar Assad, who received the award from Chirac in 2001.
The Syrian civil war erupted in 2011, and seven years later, the Assad regime returned the award, saying in a statement that it was “no honor for President Assad to wear a decoration attributed by a slave of the United States that supports terrorists.”
The only known previous case of a foreign leader being stripped of the Légion d’Honneur occurred in 2010, when Paris revoked its award to former Panamanian president Manuel Antonio Noriega, following his extradition and trial in the U.S. for money laundering.
Several non-politician recipients have also been stripped of the award in recent years. They include disgraced Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong after his doping scandal, and British fashion designer John Galliano, after a French court in 2011 convicted him of making anti-Semitic remarks.
Each year, 300 foreigners are awarded various levels of the Légion d’Honneur, “for having distinguished themselves by services to France or to the causes France supports.”