{"id":189231,"date":"2018-11-12T00:55:04","date_gmt":"2018-11-12T05:55:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=189231"},"modified":"2018-11-12T00:56:47","modified_gmt":"2018-11-12T05:56:47","slug":"marking-historic-armistice-macron-warns-world-leaders-dangers-nationalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/11\/12\/marking-historic-armistice-macron-warns-world-leaders-dangers-nationalism\/","title":{"rendered":"Marking historic armistice, Macron warns world leaders of dangers of nationalism"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Macron warned how fragile peace can be in an age where the tensions that gave rise to four years of bloody battle, costing millions of lives, appear to be festering again. He told the assembled masses that the \u201ctraces of this war never went away.\u201d (File Photo<\/a>: Emmanuel Macron\/Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

PARIS \u2014 France’s president used a global commemoration of the end of the First World War to remind leaders today that the peace forged a century ago can be easily undone by rising nationalism wrapped in the mask of patriotism.<\/p>\n

Emmanuel Macron told a gathering of more than 60 world leaders, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, that those among them who call themselves nationalists threaten to erase the moral values a nation has by putting their own interests first regardless of the effects on others.<\/p>\n

The message seemed directed at U.S. President Donald Trump, who in recent weeks described himself as a nationalist.<\/p>\n

Trump and Macron said during a meeting Saturday that they had calmed stormy waters after the two sparred over a trans-Atlantic military alliance, better known as NATO, and the American president’s continual unease about spending by member countries.<\/p>\n

But Macron appeared to stir the seas anew in his speech, given as a cold rain pelted the French capital.<\/p>\n

Macron warned how fragile peace can be in an age where the tensions that gave rise to four years of bloody battle, costing millions of lives, appear to be festering again. He told the assembled masses that the \u201ctraces of this war never went away.\u201d<\/p>\n

He urged the leaders present to promise their peoples that the resurgent \u201cold demons\u201d would not be able to return, sowing \u201cchaos and death.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNew ideologies manipulate religions, push a contagious obscurantism,\u201d he said. \u201cSometimes, history threatens to retake its tragic course and threaten our heritage of peace that we believed we had definitively settled with our ancestors’ blood.\u201d<\/p>\n

Macron, Trudeau and other leaders came to Paris hoping to use the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War to renew calls to quash festering tensions across the globe.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a general sense and desire among many countries, including Canada to do whatever is possible to sustain the institutions of the international order and practical, multilateral co-operation. And so you see that in Canada, you see that in Germany,\u201d said Roland Paris, Trudeau’s former foreign adviser.<\/p>\n

\u201cMacron (is) essentially making that point: that we can sustain co-operation, we must sustain co-operation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trudeau, who is on a 10-day trip across Europe and Asia, will come face-to-face with three of the nations sowing some of that tension: Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping.<\/p>\n

Trudeau sat beside Putin and the pair briefly chatted at the opening session of a peace summit organized by Macron on Sunday afternoon.<\/p>\n

Trudeau spoke with Trump at a dinner Macron organized on Friday night \u2014 although government officials wouldn’t say the exact topic of conversation. Trudeau will also attend summits this week in Asia that Putin and Xi are scheduled to attend.<\/p>\n

Trump did not shake Trudeau’s hand when he arrived with wife Melania at the iconic Arc de Triomphe. Neither Trump nor Putin walked a bit of the Champs-Elysee with other leaders after church bells rang out as the hour turned to 11 a.m. local time, marking the moment the guns fell silent across Europe a century ago.<\/p>\n

Trudeau has had to navigate the mercurial American president, and on Sunday afternoon he will navigate that line again when he takes part in a panel discussion about freedom of the press \u2014 another group with whom Trump has frequently sparred.<\/p>\n

The panel is part of Macron’s peace forum, described by France’s ambassador to Canada as intended to amplify the voices of non-governmental organizations and prod political leaders present to commit to Macron’s call for peace.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you’re not backed up by the highest political authority, nothing will happen,\u201d Kareen Rispal said in an interview Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to get the real commitment from the political leaders.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rispal also said Trudeau’s appearance at the Arc de Triomphe ceremony would be a reminder of Canada’s contributions during the war, which aren’t always recognized in Europe.<\/p>\n

Some 650,000 Canadians and Newfoundlanders served in the First World War, and more than 66,000 of them lost their lives. About 172,000 more were injured.<\/p>\n

Others served behind the front lines, working with locals to aid the war effort.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe as French, we as Europeans \u2014 I think we don’t value enough the effort made by the Canadians,\u201d Rispal said in an interview Friday.<\/p>\n

\u2014 With files from the Associated Press.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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