Volodymyr Zelensky will address French MPs on Friday 7 June, before meeting Emmanuel Macron and Anne Hidalgo. Yesterday, the French President announced the transfer of Mirage 2000-5 aircraft to Kiev, at a time when the war in Ukraine has been going on for over two years and Russia is stepping up its air strikes

Macron and Zelensky will sign two important agreements today. These agreements will provide €650 million in loans and grants to Ukraine to support local authorities and critical infrastructure, particularly energy infrastructure, targeted by Russia.

The first agreement will enable the French Development Agency (AFD) to receive ‘provisional funds of 400 million euros in loans and 50 million euros in grants until 2027’, in order to ‘expand its activities in Ukraine’.

AFD will thus be able to ‘deploy its full range of instruments (…) to support Ukrainian local authorities, in coordination and complementarity with donors already present in Ukraine’, said the Élysée.

Zelensky to address the National Assembly

During his visit to France for the commemorations of D-Day, Volodymyr Zelensky will address the National Assembly today. Welcomed at 9.30am by Yaël Braun-Pivet, he will give a speech lasting around 20 minutes at 9.50am.

The speech will form part of his visit to France, during which he will also meet Emmanuel Macron later in the day.

The opposition considers Zelensky’s invitation to the Assembly to be ‘inappropriate’ ahead of the European elections

In a few hours’ time, the Ukrainian president will deliver a speech from the Chamber, his first since the start of the war in Ukraine. This initiative is causing controversy, particularly two days before the opening of polling stations for the European elections.

Olivier Marleix, chairman of the Les Républicains group, described the invitation as ‘inappropriate’. ‘We are not here to applaud a president of another nation without having a moment to debate what France should or should not be doing’, said Manuel Bompard, an Insoumis MP.