"The strategic dialogue with Russia needs to rest on the opportunity to solve frozen conflicts, on the opportunity to address cyber issues and to talk about space and military aspects in space," Macron said, speaking at Munich Security Conference.
"There are many frozen conflicts now, there are many conflicts in cyberspace, sanctions that didn't change one bit in Russia. I don't think we should abolish the sanctions, I'm just stating that the sanctions didn't work. Europeans suffer from sanctions as much as the Russians do and the result is not exactly positive. ... We need a strategic dialogue because the current situation is the worst situation possible that you could imagine. We talk less and less but have more and more conflicts and at the same time we are not able to settle these conflicts," the French president added.
The president said that France agreed with Russia on the inadmissibility of the conflict situation in Syria.
"We need to be able to talk about external conflicts like Syria. We share Russia's opinion that whatever happens in Idlib is unacceptable," Macron said.
