Some highlights:

Macron apparently first floated the idea of sending French troops privately with French military officials in June 2023 when it became clear Ukraine's offensive was failing.

When he decided to announce it several things happened: his German and British allies weren't keen on it; the Americans were not prepared to assist; in an interview on the previous day Putin said any NATO troops entering Ukraine would be considered combatants and legitimate targets, whatever role they served there and that if the West has no red lines with Russia then Russia has no red lines with them.

I suspect yesterday there were all kinds of calls from Washington, probably the Pentagon, to France telling Macron to back off, if you go there by yourself you're on your own - these are guesses, but reasonable ones. So Macron had to change course, the idea of a presidential address had to be abandoned and we got this chaotic interview instead. That's my take on what happened. And after this I think it's far less likely that Western troops will enter Ukraine.

It's now clear that Russia is indeed getting approaches from the US to freeze the conflict, he all but confirmed it and he was scathing about it - "we're not going to freeze the conflict just because you're running out of ammunition." He also said straightforwardly that he didn't trust anybody in the West, and that the Western leaders proposing this freeze are actually more dangerous than the neocons who just want to continue the war because based on the past they're just trying to lure Russia into another Minsk 2 type trick that just buys time to rearm Ukraine and start the war all over again.

There was an interesting article today in The Economist, which is neocon central. It basically says Russia isn't the enemy, Putin is the enemy; so it's back to the old story about wanting regime change in Moscow.

They assume the oligarchs would be open to this, this is the assumption they've made for the last 10 years. Apparently back in 2014 when the first sanctions were suggested, Merkel was told by the BND, the German intelligence agency, that the oligarchs would tell Putin he either had to back down or they would arrange for him to go. Of course this didn't happen.

But even those who in the past were more sympathetic to good relations with the West are much less powerful now than they were; they've also been antagonized so they're much more likely to support Putin than 10 years ago.

Macron's statement about Trump - "I've been informed that he will not win in 2024" - this isn't delusional, it's sinister and it ought to be getting more attention than it is. France isn't part of the 5 Eyes but it is part of NATO and it does make you wonder what information he's getting from the US, I don't think even Macron would have said something like this unless he'd been given private assurances from someone.

An opinion poll in Le Monde that came out after Macron started making all these statements, with European Parliament elections coming, shows that Le Pen's party has increased its already substantial lead over Macron's party so all this talk about sending French troops to Ukraine has gone down very badly with the French public. Based on the reports we've seen from Marianne on the three studies done by the military on the Ukraine war, the French military look to be solidly opposed to the idea as well.