Hardening his tone as talks to end the war in Ukraine gather pace, President Emmanuel Macron of France called Vladimir V. Putin, the Russian president, “a predator, and an ogre at our doorstep.”
The statement, made in an interview with the French TV news network LCI that was broadcast on Tuesday, was consistent with Mr. Macron’s recent warnings that Mr. Putin is not to be trusted. But it was blunter and harsher than his previous characterizations of the Russian leader.
The remarks represented a considerable shift from the warmth between the two men six years ago, when Mr. Macron invited Mr. Putin to the Brégançon fort, the summer retreat of French presidents that is on the southern coast of France. Mr. Macron declared after that meeting that the “architecture of security” between the European Union and Russia needed reinvention to take account of Russian strategic concerns.
Speaking after the meeting in Washington on Monday between President Trump and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, which Mr. Macron and other European leaders attended, the French president called Mr. Putin “a destabilizing force” who “needs to eat for his own survival.” This appeared to be an allusion to the 2022 Russian invasion aimed at swallowing Ukraine and to Moscow’s earlier predations in Crimea and Georgia.
