Macron spoke about the first conversation between French and Russian defence ministers since 2022

French President Emmanuel Macron has spoken about the talks between Defence Minister Sebastien Lecornu and Russian Minister Sergei Shoigu. According to him, the talks were tense. In particular, Shoigu tried to accuse France of involvement in the terrorist attack at the Crocus City Hall concert hall near Moscow. He also repeated the Kremlin narrative that Ukraine was allegedly involved in the terrorist attack. About it writes the edition France24.

The French President called the accusations from the Russian Federation ridiculous and noted that the tone of the Russian Minister was threatening.

French Defence Minister Sebastien Lecornu contacted his Russian counterpart Sergei Shoigu and said that Paris was ready to step up the exchange of information to fight terrorism. "Russia, for its part, told France that it hoped French security services were not involved in the recent attack on the Crocus City Hall concert hall near Moscow," the French Defence Ministry said in a statement.

Macron called Shoigu's reaction strange and senseless, especially after Islamic State extremists claimed responsibility for the attack.

It is ridiculous to say that France is behind this, that Ukrainians are behind this. This is nonsense. It does not correspond to reality, it is manipulation of information, which is part of the Russian arsenal of war," he stressed.

The French president said that Paris continued to maintain contacts with Russia because it had useful information about the origin and organisation of the terrorist attack.