Macron corners far left, far right with vote on Ukraine aid

French lawmakers have approved a security agreement with Ukraine in a symbolic vote which forced opposition parties to publicly reveal their doubts about sending military aid to Kyiv.

Seven of the 10 political groups in the parliament favored the security agreement in a vote that took place Tuesday evening. The strongest opposition came from the far left, with communist MPs and members of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s France Unbowed movement voting against, while the far-right National Rally abstained.

Overall, 372 MPs voted in favor of the deal, 99 were against while 106 abstained or were absent. President Emmanuel Macron signed the pact last month.

The ballot was conceived as an opportunity to “clarify” each party’s stance on supporting Ukraine, Benjamin Haddad, a spokesperson for the pro-Macron Renaissance party and chair of the French-Ukrainian friendship group, told POLITICO. With their votes, he argued, France Unbowed and the National Rally had “confirmed their alignment with the Kremlin’s positions.”

“Voting against [the agreement] means giving Vladimir Putin all the arguments and a signal that he hopes and expects … To abstain is … to betray what we hold dearest: the French sprit of resistance,” Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said in his introductory speech.

It was the first time the French National Assembly has been called on to vote on the war in Ukraine since Russia’s February 2022 invasion.

Uncertain support from far right

The National Rally’s presidential candidate, Marine Le Pen, said her group had abstained instead of voting against the agreement to express their solidarity with Ukraine.

But she said she opposed the agreement because it reaffirmed support for Ukraine’s accession to the NATO military alliance which, she argued, would turn its war with Russia into a global conflict. She also objected to forward-looking financial pledges which she said would “hinder” parliament’s capacity to debate military spending.

“There’s always a ‘but’ to the National Rally’s support for Ukraine,” Haddad said. “When you look at their voting record … the National Rally has always opposed sanctions and military aid to Ukraine. If they had been in power, they would’ve let Russia win.”

The French-Ukrainian agreement, described as “long-term” by both signatories, included a pledge by Paris to support the “development of a modern defence sector in Ukraine” as well as a provision that France would give Ukraine up to €3 billion in military aid for 2024.

Macron has been striving to dispel criticism that France trails other European countries in support for Ukraine, and has adopted an increasingly hawkish tone toward Moscow. The French president remarked last week that Europe should not be “cowards” in the face of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine; in February he announced that Western ground troops in Ukraine could not be “ruled out.”

According to the Kiel Institute, a German think tank, France — which has one of Europe’s largest military industrial complexes — has donated €635 million in military aid to Kyiv, far behind the €17.7 billion donated by Germany. French officials have contested these figures, arguing French arms donations have been better aligned with Ukraine’s needs.