Europe’s credibility will be destroyed if Russia is allowed to win in Ukraine, Emmanuel Macron has warned, as he defended his refusal to rule out sending troops to the country.

“If Russia wins the war in Ukraine, Europe’s credibility would be reduced to zero,” he said in a prime-time interview on his stance on the conflict.

The French president invoked Winston Churchill’s call to maintain the “sinews of peace” as he defended his earlier comments suggesting Western ground troops could be deployed to Ukraine.

Churchill famously called on the UN to keep Russia in check in 1946 “supported by the whole strength of the English-speaking world and all its connections”.

‘Ukraine war is existential for Europe’

The war in Ukraine is “existential for our Europe and for France”, Mr Macron said in the interview on France 2 and TF1.

“Do you think that the Poles, the Lithuanians, the Estonians, the Romanians and the Bulgarians could remain at peace for a second [in the event of a Russian victory in Ukraine]?” he asked. “If Russia wins this war, Europe’s credibility would be reduced to zero.”

Asked to clarify his stance on sending ground troops, the French president said: “We will never go on the offensive, we will never take the initiative.

“France is a force for peace ... Today, in order to have peace in Ukraine, we must not be weak, and so we must look at the situation lucidly and say with determination, strong will and courage that we are ready to use all the means at our disposal to achieve our objective, which is that Russia should not win.”

The French leader reiterated his position that sending Western troops into Ukraine should not be ruled out, but said that today’s situation does not require that.

‘All options are possible’

“We’re not in that situation today,” Mr Macron said, but added that “all these options are possible”.

“There is an escalation on the part of Russia and we are simply saying regarding that escalation we are prepared to respond,” he said.

The live interview, to be broadcast by TF1 and France 2, came after the French parliament debated the country’s Ukraine strategy. 

Both the National Assembly and the Senate approved in symbolic votes the 10-year bilateral security agreement signed last month between Mr Macron and Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president.

Mr Macron is set to meet Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, and Donald Tusk, the Polish prime minister, in Berlin on Friday, March 15 in a summit meant to show unity.

The French president appeared isolated on the European stage after his remarks at a Paris conference on Ukraine prompted an outcry from other leaders. 

‘We will not abandon Ukraine’

Mr Scholz, in particular, appeared to contradict his French counterpart, saying participants had agreed there would be “no ground troops” on Ukrainian soil sent by European states.

French officials later sought to clarify Mr Macron’s remarks and tamp down the backlash, while insisting on the need to send a clear signal to Russia that it cannot win in Ukraine.

Speaking at the National Assembly, Gabriel Attal, the prime minister, said Mr Macron’s message “has been very clear: we will not abandon Ukraine and we are not ruling out any option on principle”.

France is not “waging war against Russia” and “rejects any escalation”, Mr Attal said, and he added: “We don’t set ourselves limits against Russia, which doesn’t set any [limits] for itself.”