European leaders must not give up their efforts to build an autonomous political bloc, stressed French President Emmanuel Macron.
This European bloc must resist the dipole of China and the United States, Macron said in an interview with Le Grand Continent.
The French president stressed that "it should be noted that the framework for multilateral cooperation has been weakened today because it is blocked."
This is his first public interview since the US presidential election.
Macron said the United States would respect Europe only if it was sovereignly, technologically and monetarily dominant.
Warning that the values and interests of the United States were not quite the same as those of Europe, he said: "It is not sustainable for our international policies to depend on it or to follow the United States."
The same need for independence applies even more to China, he added.
Macron spoke of the need to modernize the institutions of international co-operation, saying that "the United Nations Security Council is no longer producing useful solutions."
"I have to say that the United Nations Security Council does not make useful decisions today; we are all co-responsible when some people become hostages to multilateral crises, such as the World Health Organization," he said.
In this international context, the bet for Macron is "strengthening and building a political Europe because if we want to create cooperation, equal poles will have to build this cooperation, around a new multilateral cooperation, that is, a dialogue of the different forces to decide together."
The French president even commented on the result of the American elections.
"So I think the change of government is an opportunity for us to continue in a completely peaceful and calm way, which the allies need to understand: we need to continue to build our autonomy for ourselves, like the United States does for themselves, as China does for itself," Macron said.
