French President Emmanuel Macron made a strong plea for the UK and other European countries to de-risk their relationships with and decrease their reliance on both the US and China. Macron made these remarks in an address to both Houses of the British Parliament during his three-day state visit to the UK this week.
“We will have, as well, to de-risk our two countries for the excessive dependencies on both the US and China,” Macron said, adding that he was not equating China and the US.
“We have a strong ally on one side and a challenger, sometimes a partner when we speak about climate change, with China,” he said. The French, British and others in Europe had to build solid value chains and reduce dependencies on both countries to safeguard their future, according to Mr. Macron.
Europe, he warned, had to defend its democracies from foreign interference, “manipulation” and the “domination of minds by negative emotions and addictions to social media”. Europeans were becoming vulnerable to algorithm design in the US, in China, and in Russia, Macron said, as he called for new regulations. “…Otherwise, our future will be decided by those who will decide for this algorithm,” he said.
