00:00 In the weeks leading up to today's summit in Brussels, we've seen a more aggressive Emmanuel Macron.
00:04 The French president has refused to rule out sending troops to Ukraine
00:07 and maintains support to Kiev should have no limits.
00:10 On the eve of the discussions in Brussels, a photo of the president was posted by his official photographer.
00:16 It shows Emmanuel Macron boxing with bulged arms and even gritting his teeth.
00:21 Dave, do other EU leaders share this aggressive approach from Emmanuel Macron?
00:29 Yeah, those photo releases certainly got a lot of eyebrows raised.
00:33 I think because it matched the recent bellicose tone from the French president,
00:37 which is not necessarily shared by everyone.
00:40 So of course his comments that it shouldn't be off the table to put Western troops on the ground in Ukraine,
00:46 possibly directly facing off with Russian soldiers,
00:50 crossing a major taboo, a major red line that's been there throughout the Cold War for the past 70 years,
00:56 that Western troops should never face off directly against Russian troops,
01:00 that wasn't greeted so well, particularly by Germany.
01:02 This new bellicose Emmanuel Macron is winning a lot of friends in the Eastern EU, however.
01:07 He's gotten backing for these ideas from the Baltic countries.
01:11 It's not just in this area.
01:13 We are seeing Macron really in this second term seeing himself as the natural leader of Europe
01:20 in the absence of any other obvious leaders.
01:23 And we saw that also this morning.
01:25 This morning there was a nuclear summit on the other side of town here in Brussels.
01:29 And when I was there listening to President Macron, again, he's really sounding this leader of Europe idea.
01:34 He wants the EU to invest in nuclear as a way to improve, to fight climate change and to improve its energy security.
01:42 He hit that idea hard this morning.
01:44 We again saw that boxing Macron, that bellicose Macron this morning.
01:49 This is what we can expect from him, I think, from now on in the second term.
01:53 And devoid leadership in Germany or in other countries that might be providing it,
01:58 there really isn't an alternative inside that European Council right now.
02:02 He is the ideas generator.
