French President Emmanuel Macron admitted on Wednesday that France was wrong about Eastern European countries, saying his country should have paid more attention to them amid their warnings about a belligerent Russia ahead of its invasion of Ukraine, Reuters reported.

In a speech in Bratislava, Macron told the GLOBSEC forum that there should be no division between “Old Europe” and “New Europe”, referring to long-standing differences between eastern and western members of the European Union over issues such as Russia.

“Some have said that you have lost the opportunity to remain silent. I think we have also lost the opportunity to listen to you. This time is over,” Macron said to applause from the audience.

He alluded to then-French President Jacques Chirac’s remark in 2003 that Eastern European countries that sided with the United States and Britain in their decision to invade Iraq that year against key Western allies, including France and Germany, had lost “a good opportunity to to be silent.”

The remark shocked Eastern European countries and contributed to a lingering mistrust among the new EU members that resurfaced after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

Since the invasion, eastern EU countries such as Poland have criticized Macron for keeping open channels of communication with Russian President Vladimir Putin or that Russia should not be “humiliated” during international efforts to end the conflict in Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Emmanuel Macron, who in 2019 said NATO was “brain dead”, said on Wednesday that Russian President Vladimir Putin had “woke him up with the worst electric shock” by invading Ukraine.

“We now have all possible ways to help Ukraine carry out an effective counteroffensive,” the French head of state said in Bratislava.

Macron also said on Wednesday that a “defensive Europe”, a “European pillar in NATO” was “important if we want to be credible in the long term”, urging Europeans to arm themselves with a “deep strike capability” and buy European weapons.