PARIS – French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Wednesday that the sanctions imposed by the Western countries on Russia for ordering troops into separatist regions of eastern Ukraine would have a “relatively” limited impact on the French Economy.
He also told RMC Radio and BFM TV that he was monitoring the evolution of oil prices while reaffirming the need to protect the French consumers against rising energy prices.
“We must diversify our supplies,” Le Maire said, stressing France had a 20% exposure to Russian gas.
Western countries fear a conflict on a scale unseen in Europe at least since the Yugoslav and Chechen wars of the 1990s, when hundreds of thousands died and millions fled.
(Reporting by Benoit Van Overstraeten; Editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta)