France and other European countries ready to send troops to Ukraine – Minister

He expects the United States to support European troops in maintaining peace after a ceasefire agreement is reached between Ukraine and Russia.

“If we want a ceasefire to be respected, we need a US backup. I believe the Americans have agreed to do that,” he said.

Earlier this week, Lombard and French President Emmanuel Macron traveled to Washington to discuss the situation in Ukraine and trade with their American counterparts, including President Donald Trump and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

“We discussed all the issues, trade, tariffs, non-tariff barriers. We agreed to continue to talk, which is a step forward,” he said.

He added that he and Bessent had exchanged phone numbers and would meet again in April at the spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in Washington.

Lombard is participating in a meeting of the G20 financial leaders. The United States and Argentina decided to skip the event after Trump publicly quarreled with his South African counterpart Cyril Ramaphosa over domestic land laws, equality policies, and the war in the Gaza Strip.

French officials have said Lombard intends to reaffirm his country's commitment to multilateralism and project European unity amid Trump's attacks on the world order governed by the global institutions the United States helped create. The United States has already withdrawn from the World Health Organization, the Human Rights Council, and the Paris Climate Agreement.

French President Emmanuel Macron said earlier that a potential truce should be the first step in the peace process.

“The framework should be as follows: negotiations between the US and Russia, as well as between the US and Ukraine,” Macron said, adding that an agreement could be reached in the coming weeks.

The French president also called on the United States to stand in solidarity with European allies in the event of an end to hostilities.