VILLERS-COTTERÊTS (France), Oct 5 — French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday urged the international community to avoid "double standards” in global conflicts including the Middle East and Ukraine as he opened a summit of francophone leaders.

Macron insisted that French-speaking countries could together make a major contribution to global peace, even as analysts say France’s global influence is waning especially in Africa.

"I believe deeply that the francophone world is, yes, a place where we can have a diplomacy together that defends the sovereignty and territorial integrity everywhere across the planet,” said Macron.

"It is a place that is speaking the same language on Ukraine, which is being attacked today, threatened in its borders and in its territorial integrity by the Russian war of aggression,” he said.

"But it also defends a vision where there is no room for double standards, where all lives are equal for all conflicts throughout the world,” he added.

Macron has previously expressed alarm over Israel’s campaign in Lebanon against targets of Shiite militant group Hezbollah saying the number of civilian casualties was "absolutely shocking”.

In his speech he said Lebanon, a former French colony, was "today shaken in its sovereignty and peace” as the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah escalates.

"There can be no peace in the Middle East without a two-state solution” between Israel and the Palestinians, he added.

Referring to, but not naming, China, Macron also called for a "peaceful region” in the Indo-Pacific "where no power can call this peace into question”.

The leaders gathered Friday at a chateau in Villers-Cotterets northeast of Paris and Saturday in the French capital for the "Francophonie” summit, the first time the event has been held in France for 33 years.

The dozens of leaders attending range from Democratic Republic of Congo President Felix Tshisekedi to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

French influence in Africa has been eroded by coups in Mali in 2021, Burkina Faso in 2022 and Niger in 2023 which saw Paris-friendly governments replaced by juntas who become closer to Russia. None of the new governments in those countries have been invited. — AFP