PARIS, October 2. /TASS/. French President Emmanuel Macron has proposed detaining tankers of Russia's so-called "shadow" fleet at sea "for weeks" to disrupt supplies of oil.
"It is very important because you kill the business model by detaining even for days or weeks these vessels and forcing them to organize themselves differently and killing the efficiency of the business model. Because this model has been organized even before 2022 but is now totally industrialized. And I suggest that in the framework of the Coalition of the Willing, with close coordination with NATO, we work to see how to optimize this common action," Macron said at the opening of the summit of the European Political Community in Copenhagen, streamed by the press service of the European Commission.
He cited the detention of a tanker sailing from a Russian port to India by France near its shores as an example. "Now we have clearly a way to increase the pressure by coordinating and a holistic approach on this shadow fleet. And what we did in the past few days with our Navy, just in order to make controls and to make sure that this, it was a vessel we identified, a series of vessels and to be sure they were compliant with international rules, delivered very concrete results. First because you can identify the presence of a shadow fleet on your coast," Macron stressed. "As we stopped them during one, two weeks’ time, we completely break the efficiency of the organization," he added.
"So shadow fleet is a very good target if we want to improve our efficiency to reduce these capacities. And I think this is a very important step forward in order to increase our pressure on Russia," the French leader added.
Earlier, the French Navy stopped a tanker in the West of the country, on suspicion of violating maritime law. The office of prosecutor of Brest launched an investigation into the incident. The prosecutor’s office did not give any details about the alleged violations other than to say that the investigation is related to the possible "absence of justification of the national affiliation of the vessel or the flag" and "the refusal to obey."