Macron says UN Security Council out of 'useful solutions'

PARIS: French President Emmanuel Macron said the UN Security Council no longer provides good solutions to global problems, in remarks published Monday, and called for an overhaul of international cooperation mechanisms.

Multilateral frameworks "are weakened today, because they are blocked", Macron said in an interview with website Le Grand Continent.

"I cannot help but observe that the United Nation's Security Council no longer produces useful solutions today," Macron said.

Except for one video conference in April, the Council -- whose permanent members are the United States, China, Britain, France and Russia -- has not communicated on the global Covid pandemic.

Macron said "everybody is jointly responsible when some institutions become hostages of the crisis in multi-lateralism", such as the World Health Organization.

President Donald Trump has accused the WHO of being too close to the Chinese government and has started a procedure to withdraw the US from the organisation.

Now was the right time to "strengthen and structure a political Europe" which could be at the heart of a "new multi-lateralism", Macron said.

A strong Europe, he said, "is the only way to impose our values" to avoid a Chinese-US duopoly and "the return of hostile regional powers".

In a speech before the UN General Assembly in September, Macron had already called on the international community to avoid being reduced to the status of "depressed observer" of a China-US rivalry.

In Monday's interview, Macron said he "deeply" disagreed with German Defence Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer who said recently that Europe would not be able to replace the United States as a guarantor of its own security.

"I think that is a misinterpretation of history," Macron said. "Luckily, the Chancellor (Angela Merkel) does not share that view if I've understood correctly."

The United States would respect Europeans as allies only "once we are serious about ourselves and once we have sovereignty over our own defence".

He added: "We need to build our own autonomy, just like the United States builds its own, and China builds its own."