{"id":854352,"date":"2026-03-27T18:11:19","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T18:11:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/854352\/"},"modified":"2026-03-27T18:11:19","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T18:11:19","slug":"france-again-disappoints-trump-on-hormuz-after-rubio-talks-euobserver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/854352\/","title":{"rendered":"France again \u2018disappoints\u2019 Trump on Hormuz, after Rubio talks \u2013 EUobserver"},"content":{"rendered":"

France has again ruled out the EU sending its navies into the Iran war after speaking eye-to-eye with US president Donald Trump\u2019s top envoy.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrance is prepared to lead an international mission to restore freedom of navigation in Hormuz once hostilities cease, in a purely defensive posture, and in agreement with the principal countries concerned,\u201d said French foreign minister Jean-No\u00ebl Barrot in Vaux-de-Cernay, near Paris, after speaking with his US counterpart, Marco Rubio, in the first high-level G7 meeting since the Iran war.<\/p>\n

France, Germany, Italy, the UK, Japan, Canada, and the US were working on a \u201csystem of escorts\u201d for oil tankers, Barrot said.<\/p>\n

And France had mobilised \u201csignificant means\u201d in the eastern Mediterranean<\/a>, he added, where its aircraft carrier led a fleet of six EU countries\u2019 frigates.<\/p>\n

But these were meant to protect Cyprus from Iran and to help repatriate European nationals from the Middle East, Barrot said, while any Hormuz mission could go ahead only \u201conce calm returns, once the military objectives of the US are attained\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Barrot declined to tell press if Rubio had asked for more, but Trump said in Washington on Thursday: \u201cI\u2019m so disappointed in Nato, because this was a test for Nato\u201d, referring to his demands for immediate European military intervention.<\/p>\n

Barrot\u2019s Hormuz condition of acting in \u201cagreement with the principal countries concerned\u201d indicated Iran would have to agree before France went in.<\/p>\n

He said Egypt, Pakistan, and Turkey were trying to mediate between the US and Iran, with French \u201csupport\u201d, to \u201cde-escalate\u201d fighting.<\/p>\n

Brazil, India, South Korea also sent ministers to the G7 event, in a sign of the global scale of the Hormuz` crisis.<\/p>\n

The G7 ministers meeting adopted a non-committal joint declaration on Iran.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe call upon an immediate cessation of attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure \u2026 [and] to permanently restore safe and toll free freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s unilateral attack on Iran on 28 February has diverted Western air-defences from Ukraine, while enriching Russia via higher oil prices.<\/p>\n

And his anger at Nato has redoubled fears he might abandon Europe to face Russian aggression alone.<\/p>\n

\n

Rubio: \u201cUkraine is not America\u2019s war, and yet we\u2019ve contributed more to that fight than any other country in the world,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

But the French, German, and Ukrainian foreign ministers told press at the Vaux-de-Cernay event that Russia was supplying arms and intelligence to Iran to help kill US soldiers.<\/p>\n

Barrot took Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov to task for lying about Russia\u2019s \u201cbestial, brutal\u201d war crimes in Ukraine in an interview on French TV on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Lavrov had also accused the EU of hypocrisy in its appeasement of Israeli crimes in Gaza<\/a>, but Barrot said \u201cEuropeans don\u2019t close their eyes [to human rights abuses] \u2026 not in Israel by [Palestinian fighters] Hamas, or in Gaza by Israel\u201d.<\/p>\n

For his part, Rubio said on Friday on X: \u201cToday at the G7 I reiterated that president Trump is committed to reaching a ceasefire and negotiated settlement to the Russia-Ukraine war as soon as possible\u201d.<\/p>\n

He had told press in Washington on Thursday: \u201cVery little of our energy comes from the Strait of Hormuz. It\u2019s the world that has a great interest in that, so they should step up and deal with it\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cUkraine is not America\u2019s war, and yet we\u2019ve contributed more to that fight than any other country in the world,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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