Macron asks Trump to lift sanctions on European officials

PARIS: French President Emmanuel Macron recently wrote to his US counterpart Donald Trump asking him to lift sanctions placed on several European figures, including former European commissioner Thierry Breton and ICC judge Nicolas Guillou, according to extracts of a letter seen by AFP.

In the letter, Macron says he is making a personal appeal to Trump to reconsider the sanctions, which he argues were unjustly imposed.

The letter’s existence was first reported in La Tribune Dimanche. 

Breton has been banned from entering the United States since December 2025 because of his work on regulating digital platforms in the European Union, which the Trump administration views as an infringement on freedom of expression. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has denounced EU rules as “blatant acts of extraterritorial censorship.”

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In the letter, Macron says the sanctions impinge on the EU’s right to regulate activities within its borders and that EU regulations in no way extend to US territory.

Judge Guillou, meanwhile, was sanctioned by Washington in August 2025, along with other International Criminal Court judges, because of his involvement in the court’s arrest warrant targeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Beyond being barred from entering the United States, his French bank withdrew his card using the US-based Visa payment system, and he is blocked from using US online services such as Airbnb and Amazon.

Macron said in his letter that the sanctions breach the independence of the justice system.