France’s Macron defends not using ‘genocide’ to describe Russian war crimes in Ukraine

By Shweta Desai

PARIS (AA) - French President Emmanuel Macron defended his decision Thursday not to use “genocide” to describe Russia’s war crimes in Ukraine because he wished to avoid a verbal escalation without suffering consequences.

“We must make sense of the word genocide … it must be qualified by jurists, not by politicians,” he told France Bleu radio while campaigning in Le Havre in the northern Normandy region ahead of the final round of the presidential elections on April 24.

He was responding to a question about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s remarks of being hurt by France’s position after US President Joe Biden accused Moscow of carrying out genocide in Ukraine.

“(Russian President Vladimir) Putin is just trying to wipe out the idea of even being Ukrainian,” said Biden.

Macron earlier distanced himself from Biden's description of Putin as a "butcher" and warned of avoiding escalation in words or action if the objective of peacefully ending the war is to be achieved.

Macron said he spoke directly about the subject with Zelenskyy early Thursday and will speak with him again later in the day.

“Words have a meaning; one has to be very careful … my role is obviously to try to build peace and to stop this war and to help President Zelenskyy,” he said. “But it is also to avoid escalation at all costs and to protect the French against an extension of the war.”

Western leaders are divided about using “genocide” in light of war crimes against civilians in Bucha and elsewhere in Ukraine.

The UK, Canada, Poland and Spain have condemned Russian military action as genocide, while France, Germany and leaders of the EU who visited Kyiv last week have refrained from the outright use of the word.

The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide stipulates the contracting parties must undertake “to prevent and punish genocide” and enact necessary legislation to “provide effective penalties for persons guilty of genocide.”

Macron said states which consider it genocide must, by international conventions, intervene and that would mean becoming “co-belligerent" which is not what people wish.

He said after being shocked by scenes coming from Bucha and Mariupol, France flung into action and sent magistrates and gendarmes to help Ukraine document war crimes to launch trials against offenders.

Macron added it is important for everyone “to keep their senses” rather than enter into a verbal escalation which does not help Ukraine.

“I keep the same line of words and of action to do everything to stop this war and be at the side of the Ukrainians to find peace,” he said.