French President: Confiscation of frozen Russian assets is impossible

According to RIA Novosti, French President Emmanuel Macron said in an interview with CBS News on September 21 that confiscating Russia's frozen sovereign assets is impossible because this violates international law.

"These assets cannot be confiscated from the Central Bank even in such a situation. I believe this is a matter of trust, and it is very important that our countries respect international law," President Macron said.

The French leader stressed that violating international law could turn into "the beginning of chaos".

“We can predict and will not do anything impossible with these frozen assets,” President Macron said.

Earlier, on September 17, Belgian depository Euroclear told RIA Novosti that it had not yet received specific proposals from the European Union on the use of the assets, but was aware of such plans.

After Russia began a special military operation in Ukraine, the EU and G7 member states froze almost half of Russia's foreign exchange reserves, about 300 billion euros. More than 200 billion dollars are in the accounts of Euroclear - one of the world's largest payment and clearing systems.

In late August, Welt am Sonntag reported, citing data from the European Commission, that the EU transferred 10.1 billion euros in frozen funds from Russian banks to Ukraine between January and July.