French Foreign Affairs Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault sees Russia as ”a partner not an adversary” and wants to lift sanctions over the conflict in Ukraine if concrete results can be achieved, he told the France2 television station in an interview, according to Bloomberg.
Ayrault said that change is needed in Ukraine but there is no sign of that now, Bloomberg wrote.
The minister reiterated that no hypothesis is currently favored over the disappearance of an EgyptAir plane over the Mediterranean Sea. There is ”total cooperation between France and Egypt” as the search for the plane continues.
As UNIAN reported earlier, the lower chamber of the French parliament, the National Assembly, voted for the resolution urging the government to act for the lifting of economic sanctions imposed by the West against Russia for its aggression in Ukraine.
The voting involved 101 MPs, of which 55 supported the resolution and 44 were against it. It should be noted that the National Assembly consists of 577 MPs.
The draft resolution was submitted by MP Thierry Mariani, who is Co-president of Association Dialogue Franco-Russe. In July 2015, he led a delegation of French MPs during their visit to the Russian-occupied territory of Crimea.
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