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Defiant Macron Won't Give Up Plans for Greater European Unity

Macron Says Divided Europe Opens the Way for China, U.S., Russia

(Bloomberg) -- Emmanuel Macron said Europe needed more unity -- not less -- to face up to China, Russia and the U.S.

European parliamentary elections are looming and the French president’s political party risks finishing behind its euroskeptic rival. Yet Macron is doubling down on his vision for ever-great integration of a 28-country trading bloc caught between sparring economic superpowers.

“Europe can’t afford the luxury of being paralyzed,” Macron said in an interview to regional press publications, including Le Parisien daily. “Either we decide to divide, and we will become the place where Chinese, Russian and American influences can play their games, or we decide to regain control and be sovereign.”

The 41-year-old president struck a defiant tone as he heads into a tight race in Sunday’s European elections with nationalist Marine Le Pen. At stake is the balance of power among EU members in a new political landscape pitching populists against mainstream centrist policy-makers that have seen the EU through its ups and downs.

Macron’s Republic on The Move group is new on the scene, and this marks its debut in EU parliamentary elections. He has reached out to parties in Portugal, Spain and The Netherlands to counter the conservative European People’s Party group in the EU Parliament.

French presidents have generally kept out of European election campaigns, but Macron from the start has been fully involved, presenting the vote as a binary choice between his vision of a more integrated Europe and the anti-immigration stance promoted by Le Pen.

It’s Macron’s picture appears on the poster for his LREM party, though he’s not on the ballot.

To contact the reporters on this story: Gregory Viscusi in Paris at gviscusi@bloomberg.net;Helene Fouquet in Paris at hfouquet1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Flavia Krause-Jackson at fjackson@bloomberg.net, ;Ben Sills at bsills@bloomberg.net, Robert Jameson

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