You will surprise us with little, but sometimes French President Emmanuel Macron succeeds in this, as happened on June 28 in Marseille, where he announced that "he puts more pressure on Azerbaijani President Ilham Heydarovich Aliyev than on Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Vovayevich Pashinyan, and that he is the only one who has a clear position on the issue of Nagorno-Karabakh, who almost single-handedly keeps that topic on the agenda of the world community." This was stated by the official representative of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), Maria Zakharova, in Thursday's ministry press briefing, commenting on the French president's statement that he promised to put more pressure on the president of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, regarding the normalization of relations with Armenia.

"I can tell you that after such statements there is a feeling that President Macron's modesty is second only to his masculinity. Of course, we do not stop being surprised by such characteristics of the French president, about the pathos with which he speaks about his personal role, merit both in the Karabakh [conflict] settlement and in other issues as well. It's a pity that he didn't talk about the results of such fruitful work," Zakharova said.

"The process is there, but the result is not. And, by the way, no one has ever seen those results; not only in the case of France's mediation in the Karabakh [conflict] settlement, but also in many other cases that Macron has undertaken many times. For a long time, we have no illusions about France's ability to make a positive contribution to resolving the difficult issues of Nagorno-Karabakh, sabotaging and, in fact, disrupting the work of the OSCE Minsk Group, including with the efforts of Paris in 2022, the adoption of a resolution by the French National Assembly and the Senate last fall, whereby Azerbaijan's aggression [against Armenia] was condemned, as they wrote, and it was demanded to impose sanctions against the country and its officials, Paris's deployment of a civilian [monitoring] mission to Armenia with a dubious mandate and without taking into account the opinion of Azerbaijan. All these are clear examples of the French agenda in this regional conflict, which requires knowledge, professional actions," the Russian MFA spokesperson added.

"I can state that all these actions, demonstrative steps are not aimed at helping the parties, but at pushing Russia out of the settlement process, and at the realization of their own political and sometimes just pre-election goals. Not only did they not have a positive result in the negotiation process, but, on the contrary, they discredited the role of France as a mediator in Armenian-Azerbaijani relations. But, you understand, no one has canceled self-PR yet, everyone makes their own choice in this sense. Maybe that's the only thing left for them," said Zakharova.