President Macron set the stage for new discord in Nato by declaring that Russia was no longer the enemy of the alliance and calling for closer ties with Moscow.

Less than a week before the difficult Nato summit in Britain, the French president stuck to his widely criticised claim that the alliance was “brain dead” and in need of a strategy to replace US leadership of the continent’s defence.

“Nato is an organisation of collective defence. Against what, against who is it defending itself? Who is our common enemy? This question deserves clarification,” Mr Macron said after talks in Paris with Jens Stoltenberg, Nato’s secretary-general. Mr Stoltenberg criticised Mr Macron’s views on of the alliance this month and Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, issued a