‘Predator, an ogre at our gates’: Macron calls Putin ‘a threat to Europe’ hours after Trump-Zelenskyy talks

French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday dubbed Vladimir Putin as an “ogre”, a giant monster in European folklore that eats children.

In an interview with French station LCI, Macron emphasised the collective threat that Europe faces from Russian aggression and called Putin “a predator” and “an ogre at our gates” that “needs to keep eating” for “his own survival”.

In the European folklore, an ‘ogre’ is a giant, grotesque humanoid monster that eats humans, particularly infants and children.

In the Russian war on Ukraine, the abduction of Ukrainian children has been widely condemned and has emerged as an emotional issue across the continent. Ukraine has said that Russia has abducted around 19,500 children, many of whom it says have been placed under illegal adoptions in Russia.

American Lady First Lady Melania Trump has also written to Putin to address the issue of children in the war. European Union (EU) chief Ursula von der Leyen also raised the issue in the meeting with US President Donald Trump at the White House on Monday.

Macron further flagged the risk to France and the entire continent from Russia and highlighted Putin’s history of not honouring peace deals.

“Putin has rarely honoured his commitments. He has constantly been a force for destabilisation. He has sought to redraw borders to increase his power,” said Macron, adding that he did not believe that Russia would “return to peace and a democratic system from one day to the next”.

While he said that France would not “come under attack tomorrow” from Russia, Macron said that no one should be naive and “of course this is a threat to Europe”.

In recent years, Macron has transformed from someone who believed in cooperation with Russia to a hawk who has proposed extending the French nuclear umbrella to the entire continent and has helmed ‘coalition of the willing’ efforts to prepare a military response to deter Russia in case of a ceasefire in Ukraine.

In early 2022, Macron led the shuttle diplomacy, including personal meetings with Putin, in a bid to avert the war. But, since the failure of those efforts, he has transformed into a hawk advocating for greater military preparedness to deal with Russia