MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Leonid Slutsky, the chairman of the Russian lower house of parliament's international affairs committee, called on Thursday for France to take part in the anti-terror coalition focusing on diplomatic efforts.
“You should join our coalition. We need France. We need not France with assault rifles, we need France on international platforms. We need France for military planning and full-fledged cooperation with Damascus,” Slutsky said.
Political dialogue between France and Russia deteriorated after the eruption of the Ukrainian crisis in 2014, which provoked the introduction of political and economic sanctions against Russia by the European Union and the United States, as well as Moscow's reciprocal restrictive measures on some food products imported from those states.