A decision that could turn out to be symbolic. Emmanuel Macron did not rule out withdrawing the Legion of Honor awarded by his predecessor Jacques Chirac to Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2006, while explaining that he wanted to choose “the right time to do it”.
The Head of State presented Wednesday evening to Volodymyr Zelensky, passing through Paris during his second trip outside Ukraine since the start of the Russian invasion, the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor. This is the highest distinction that a French president can award to a counterpart.
Asked by the press after a European summit in Brussels on the night of Thursday to Friday, he explained that this distinction was “an element of justice and recognition of our country” with regard to the Ukrainian president.
Putin’s decoration was controversial
But the informal ceremony to award the Legion of Honor to Volodymyr Zelensky at the Elysée, of which Emmanuel Macron had tweeted a video, has revived the demands of those who demand that France withdraw this distinction from Vladimir Putin.
In 2006, Jacques Chirac presented the Russian President with the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor. This decision immediately raised a controversy. The organization Reporters Without Borders had notably tried in court, but in vain, to deprive the master of the Kremlin of it.
Referring to a “symbolic but important question”, President Macron said: “I do not forbid myself anything (…) but it is not a decision that I took today”. These decisions “are always meaningful and I think you have to appreciate the right moment to make them”.