ISTANBUL

French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday accused the US of “gradually turning away from certain allies” and “breaking free from international rules.”

"The United States is an established power, but it is gradually turning away from certain allies and breaking free from international rules that it still promoted until recently," Macron told French ambassadors gathered at the Elysee Palace in Paris.

Highlighting the great risk of weakening institutions, the French president also pointed to widespread "neocolonial aggressiveness" from "certain actors."

"The institutions of multilateralism are functioning less and less effectively. We are moving in a world of great powers with a real temptation to divide up the world," he underscored.

Macron also urged “fully reinvesting in the United Nations” in the face of the “greatest disorder” in international governance and called for “rejecting new colonialism and new imperialism” as much as “defeatism."

"What we have managed to achieve for France and in Europe has moved in the right direction. Greater strategic autonomy, less dependence on the United States as well as China," he said.

Macron further recounted that every day, people wonder whether Greenland will be invaded or whether "Canada will be subjected to the threat of becoming the 51st state (of the US)."

"I cannot get used to what we are currently experiencing (...) We are not here to comment, we are here to act,” he further said.