Macron to call emergency G7 meeting as energy prices spike and Russian hybrid attacks mount
PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron said Friday he would call a Group of Seven meeting to address skyrocketing global energy prices and look at releasing strategic oil stocks.
“We will have in the upcoming weeks a G7 [meeting] that will be devoted to energy issues, to increase cooperation and avoid unnecessary tensions between G7 countries and our main partners,” Macron said during a press conference.
The French leader’s comments came after he chaired a rare crisis meeting at the Elysée Palace. During the meeting, French intelligence chiefs briefed political leaders and candidates in the presidential election next year about the threats posed by Russia’s war in Ukraine and the conflict in the Middle East, both of which are driving fuel prices to new highs in France.
“The situation we face is serious. It is serious due to the international situation and the consequence of wars that we endure,” Macron said. “In this context we need to stay united.”
France’s dire fiscal outlook, which has prompted the government to pursue a €54 billion budget squeeze next year, will make it difficult for the state to massively subsidize increasingly expensive energy bills. Macron told reporters, however, that the government was working on targeted assistance proposals.
Macron also said he was seeking to firm up French access to oil and gas supplies during recent meetings with leaders from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. He added that he’d discuss France’s trade in petroleum products and liquefied natural gas with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney when the two meet on Sunday.
The president said France was stepping up efforts to protect critical infrastructure and defense production sites amid the uptick in cyberattacks and the intensified threat of so-called hybrid attacks from Russia, including recent ones on a Ukrainian passenger train and at Leipzig airport in Germany. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk warned Thursday that Russia was planning to target Ukraine’s European allies using drones or rockets.
Among those in attendance were center-right former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, centrist Gabriel Attal, conservative candidate Bruno Retailleau, center-left Raphaël Glucksmann, Greens leader Marine Tondelier and Socialist Party chief Olivier Faure. Far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, who has a commanding lead in the polls, was represented by her party’s president, Jordan Bardella, while far-left hopeful Jean-Luc Mélenchon was represented by a high-ranking lawmaker from his party, Manuel Bompard.
The politicians who spoke to reporters after the meeting acknowledged the gravity of what had been discussed. Guillaume Lacroix, the head of a small left-wing party, wrote online that the stakes of the three-hour briefing had made his head spin.
“In my 50 years, I have rarely felt such a sense of vertigo,” he said. “Vertigo at the gravity of the situations in the Middle East and Ukraine, and at the predatory madness driving the world toward chaos.”
But Macron’s opponents criticized him for failing to present solutions during the forum to bring down energy prices.
“The question of purchasing power was swept aside,” said Bardella.
Retailleau, who leads the conservative party Les Républicains, said he had suggested “a number of proposals” during the meeting.
