PARIS: French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday warned that Europe faced an existential threat from Russian aggression, calling on the continent to adopt a “credible” defence strategy less dependent on the United States.

He described Russia’s behaviour after its invasion of Ukraine as “uninhibited” and said it was no longer clear where Moscow’s “limits” lay.

Macron also sounded the alarm on what he described as disrespect of global trade rules by both the United States and China, calling on the European Union to revise its trade policy.

“Our Europe, today, is mortal and it can die,” he said.

“It can die and this depends only on our choices,” Macron said, warning that Europe was “not armed against the risks we face” in a world where the “rules of the game have changed”.

“Over the next decade... there is an immense risk of (Europe) being weakened or even relegated,” he added, also pointing to the risk of Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon.

Macron returned to the themes of a September 2017 speech he gave months after taking office, speaking at the same location — the Sorbonne University in Paris — but in a context that seven years on has been turned upside down by Brexit, Covid and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.