French president was commenting on a prolonged, seemingly aggressive handshake between the leaders at the Nato summit in Brussels
Emmanuel Macron has compared Donald Trump to Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, saying they all see international relationships as a balance of power.
The newly installed French president compared Mr Trump to the increasingly autocratic leaders when commenting on pictures of a tense handshake between them at the Nato summit in Brussels last week.
Mr Macron said the tense handshake, which last several seconds with both men’s knuckles looking white before Mr Trump was forced to pull away first, was “not innocent” and was designed to show he was not a pushover.
He told French newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche: “Donald Trump, the Turkish president or the Russian president see relationships in terms of a balance of power.
“That doesn’t bother me. I don’t believe in diplomacy by public abuse, but in my bilateral dialogues I won’t let anything pass.”
He said that a leader must show that they will not “make small concessions, even symbolic ones” or over publicise their achievements.
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Perhaps more than anything else, our European friends can help us by calling things as they see them in America. https://t.co/O967rUdJMl
— Evan McMullin (@Evan_McMullin) May 29, 2017
Macron says long @realDonaldTrump handshake "not innocent" https://t.co/8XDKzwE9cF via @POLITICOEurope pic.twitter.com/IL32QVGP5Q
— POLITICO (@politico) May 29, 2017
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