PARIS: President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday lashed Poland’s Prime Minister during a TV interview after Mateusz Morawiecki criticized the French leader for engaging with the Kremlin over the war in Ukraine.
“The position was both baseless and scandalous,” Macron said after Morawiecki questioned the French leader’s record of engaging with Russian President Vladimir Putin, suggesting the Polish leader, backed by a right-wing party, was seeking to empower Macron’s right-wing rival Marine Le Pen in France’s presidential election.
Macron said that Morawiecki had met Le Pen on numerous occasions.
In a high-profile intervention Monday, in which Morawiecki called for a genocide investigation into alleged crimes by Russian forces in Ukraine, the Polish leader criticized several European leaders.
“How many times have you negotiated with Putin and what have you achieved?” he said addressing Macron.
“We do not discuss, we do not negotiate with criminals. Criminals have to be fought against.
“Nobody negotiated with Hitler. Would you negotiate with Hitler, with Stalin, with Pol Pot?“
Morawiecki also called for new Western sanctions against Russia and compared Putin to dictators from the past.
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