French President Emmanuel Macron says Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are threatening Western values of openness and tolerance, but isolating them from Europe would be counterproductive.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you decide just to push them back from Europe and our values, saying \u2018you\u2019re betraying our values\u2019, you lose them,\u201d he told the BBC.<\/p>\n
Many see the US and Russian leaders as resistant to liberal \u201celite\u201d values.<\/p>\n
Mr Macron was speaking in Abu Dhabi, where he opened a new Louvre Museum.<\/p>\n
He called it a symbol of tolerance and diversity in the region.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re at the epicentre of a series of conflicts and battles inside the Muslim world,\u201d he said in an interview at the weekend. \u201cIt\u2019s very important to me to support those defending an open Islam.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the West had made a mistake in abandoning a \u201cgrand narrative\u201d around its values and identity, and that France had a role in defending them abroad.<\/p>\n
Plea for European \u2018narrative\u2019<\/h2>\n
\u201cYou need a collective narrative, a common goal, common imagination,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was the strength of Daesh [so-called Islamic State] \u2013 it was a promise of death.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I think one of the problems of Western society and Western countries during the past decade was to abandon imagination, ambition, vision.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo one falls in love with the single market, the financial market, labour reforms or budget perspective,\u201d he continued. \u201c[People] are motivated because of a big narrative.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said it was \u201cparanoia, their [sense of] threat, and their willingness to protect something\u201d that made leaders such as President Putin choose a different path, but that the Russian president was forgetting that part of his country\u2019s own civilisation was about openness, and that its future was directly linked to Europe.<\/p>\n
Mr Macron took office six months ago, promising to transform France\u2019s economy, society, even its identity. Since then he has made 28 foreign trips and set out new proposals for the European Union, designed to give the bloc a collective vision and promote its benefits at home.<\/p>\n
Source: BBC<\/p>\n
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