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French president says EU needs no outside advice

Xinhua, January 17, 2017 Adjust font size:

The European Union (EU) "does not need external advice to tell it what it has to do," French President Francois Hollande said Monday.

Hollande made the remarks in response to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's comments on topics such as the EU and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in an interview with The Times of London and German newspaper Bild published Monday.

"Europe will always be ready to pursue trans-Atlantic cooperation, but it will base its decisions on its interests and values," Hollande said at a ceremony for outgoing U.S. Ambassador to France Jane Hartley.

Hollande also said NATO "will be obsolete only when threats have also become obsolete."

In the interview, Trump said the future of the EU is "very tough" and a Brexit would not have happened if people had not been forced to take in refugees.

Trump also said NATO was "obsolete because it was not taking care of terror," and he complained that various members of the bloc were not paying their dues, which was "very unfair to the United States." Endi