Nathalie Loiseau warns against trusting Putin's claim that Ukraine war is ending

Nathalie Loiseau, a Renew MEP and national secretary of the Horizons party in charge of international affairs, and a former French minister for European affairs, warned on Sunday that it would be "imprudent" to trust Vladimir Putin's assertion that the war in Ukraine is nearing its end.

Speaking on Franceinfo's "8h30 franceinfo" on May 10, 2026, Loiseau said: "Il faut être sur nos gardes" ("We must be on our guard"). She described Putin's May 9 military parade, held on Saturday, as "au rabais" ("cut-rate") because there was no heavy military equipment on display and almost no one around the Russian president. "Ce qu'on voit avec ce défilé, qui, normalement est une démonstration de puissance de la Russie, c'est un défilé au rabais," she said.

Loiseau cautioned that Europeans "would be wrong" to conclude that Putin is weakened. "Une paix bâclée est une paix dans laquelle Vladimir Poutine garde une rancœur vis-à-vis de l'Occident, garde l'envie d'affaiblir encore l'Otan, l'Union européenne, et cela peut être extrêmement dangereux," she said.

Loiseau, a member of Edouard Philippe's Horizons party, was traveling on May 10 to Reims for a rally of supporters of Philippe, who is a candidate for the 2027 presidential election. She said Philippe has done more touring of France than anyone else over several years and "n'est pas là pour communiquer, mais pour convaincre" ("is not there to communicate, but to convince").