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French President Emmanuel Macron, whose attempts to woo Russia’s Vladimir Putin have yielded little success, weighed in in the political crisis shaking Moscow’s ally Belarus by meeting with opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya.
Tikhanovskaya, who was forced into exile in Lithuania under pressure from Belarusian autocratic leader Alexander Lukashenko, said in Vilna after speaking with Macron, the most prominent world leader she has ever known, that he had promised to help negotiate the liberation of the imprisoned in Belarus.
Belarus has been rocked by protests since Lukashenko claimed victory over Ms Tikhanovskaya in a deeply flawed election last month, then unleashed a brutal crackdown on his opponents.
“[Mr Macron] He said that time is very important as many people are suffering for the regime, many people are in jail and he will do everything possible to help free all political prisoners, ”Ms. Tikhanovskaya told reporters after of the 35 minute meeting.
Macron, who had sought in vain Putin’s help to resolve the Middle East crises to Ukraine, has condemned the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny with the nerve agent novichok. A senior French official said the use of chemical weapons in such an assassination attempt was crossing “a red line.”
The French president has also supported attempts by the Baltic states, once part of the Soviet Union, to counter Russian cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns.
Macron is visiting Lithuania and Latvia and issued a joint statement with the leaders of the two countries on Monday in support of measures to defend democracies from interference in election results, misinformation and attempts to circumvent the controls on the financing of political parties.
The meeting between Macron and Tikhanovskaya comes two days after tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Belarus, another former Soviet state, in the latest in a series of protests demanding Lukashenko’s resignation.
The demonstrations are the largest in the independent history of Belarus. But Lukashenko has refused to make concessions to his opponents, and his grip on power has been reinforced by Putin’s backing.
However, Ms Tikhanovskaya insisted that the protests, which have lasted for more than 50 days, would not stop.
“People are not going to accept the regime in which they have lived all this year,” he said in an interview with AFP that was published on Monday. “They will fight more and more against the system.”
