PARIS, Sept 24 (Reuters) – France will send troops and defence systems to Saudi Arabia to help protect the Red Sea port city of Yanbu, which is key for energy transport, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Thursday.
Macron also said a US ban on diesel exports, which the White House has denied is under consideration, would be “catastrophic,” both globally and for the US economy.
Macron was speaking in a wide-ranging primetime television interview on the international situation, in which he also warned about possible Russian attacks on French soil.
Facing growing pressure at home over high energy prices, Macron sought to assure the French that France had adequate gas and oil supplies as winter approaches. He said Paris was actively working to ensure flows were not disrupted.
Crude oil prices have surged recently as the main alternative route for Saudi oil exports through Yanbu has come under missile attacks from Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis.
“We are going to send military resources, that is to say, soldiers, radar systems and defence systems, to protect this site – not to get us involved in any conflicts, but to protect this site,” Macron told TF1 and France 2 TV.
RUSSIAN THREAT
Macron dismissed a report by Spanish newspaper El Mundo that the US Central Intelligence Agency had warned European governments about the threat of potential drone attacks from the Mediterranean.
“I can deny it. The CIA did not inform French services,” he said.
Still, Macron said Russia is multiplying hostile and criminal acts against European countries, and France could face strikes similar to the failed attack in Leipzig. Germany said Russia was responsible for an attempted drone attack in August on the Leipzig airport.
Macron gathered French party chiefs at the Elysee last week to brief them on the growing threat from Russia. He later said he had ordered his government to draw up a plan to protect critical infrastructure against drone and cyber attacks.
Macron said Moscow was seeking to intimidate Europe and break the continent’s resolve in supporting Ukraine.
Russia says European allegations of hybrid attacks are baseless and the result of anti-Russian hysteria.
Yet Macron’s position on Russia was weakened this week after France shocked other EU members by getting Russian-Uzbek metals tycoon Alisher Usmanov exempted from EU sanctions, citing national security concerns. That prompted Azerbaijan to pardon a French national jailed for espionage.
(Reporting by Dominique Vidalon, Inti Landauro, Leigh Thomas and Gabriel Stargardter; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
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