Did Macron say in 2019 it is better to make concessions to Russia on Ukraine rather than let Russia fall in Beijing's orbit?

Question

The Economist states:

Europeans fear that China and Russia are edging towards the formation of a new bloc that will dominate Eurasia. Mr Macron’s pivot to Russia is in part intended to stop it from slipping into China’s grasp. It is better, he argues, to make some concessions to solve the Ukraine issue and restart relations with Moscow than to let the world’s largest country by land mass fall into Beijing’s orbit.

Did Emmanuel Macron actually say something like this or is the Economist just speculating what Macron may be thinking?

Answer 1

Macron said something along these lines at the Conference of Ambassadors, on August 27, 2019:

Je pense en plus que pousser la Russie loin de l'Europe est une profonde erreur stratégique parce que nous poussons la Russie soit à un isolement qui accroît les tensions, soit à s'allier avec d'autres grandes puissances comme la Chine, qui ne serait pas du tout notre intérêt.

roughly translated:

I also think that pushing Russia away from Europe is a profound strategic mistake because we are pushing Russia to an isolation that increases tensions, or to ally itself with other great powers like China, which would not be our interest at all.

He added:

C'est ce que nous poursuivons par un dialogue constant avec le Président POUTINE et nous allons mettre en place ce groupe de travail pour avancer sur cette architecture commune. Et évidemment l'un des sujets décisifs pour pouvoir avancer en ce sens c'est notre capacité à avancer sur le conflit russo-ukrainien, donc la mise en œuvre des accords de Minsk. A ce titre, les discussions récentes ont permis de voir des avancées concrètes qui nous conduiront avec la Chancelière à proposer pour les prochains jours un nouveau sommet en format Normandie.

This is what we are pursuing through a constant dialogue with President PUTIN and we will set up this working group to advance on this common architecture. And, of course, one of the decisive issues to move forward in this direction is our ability to move forward on the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, and thus the implementation of the Minsk agreements. As such, the recent discussions have seen concrete progress that will lead us with the Chancellor [Merkel] to propose for the next days a new summit in Normandy format.