Macron calls for immediate release of Aung San Suu Kyi amid concerns for well-being

French President Emmanuel Macron has told Kim Aris, the son of Aung San Suu Kyi, that France will continue to press for her “immediate and unconditional release,” along with all political prisoners held since Myanmar’s 2021 coup. According to a letter from Macron, the French president was responding to a letter Aris delivered to France’s Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs on 4 May, raising concerns about his mother’s health and whereabouts after junta leader Min Aung Hlaing ordered her transfer from prison to “house arrest”. Aung San Suu Kyi, the 81-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Myanmar’s detained former State Counsellor, has been held since the military seized power on 1 February 2021. Her office’s transfer announcement in April came alongside the conditional release of former president Win Myint, but Aris says he has received no independently verified confirmation of his mother’s health or location since — a demand he has framed as a “Proof of Life” campaign. In the letter, Macron wrote that France’s appeal “remains unchanged” and that it “will continue to call for her immediate and unconditional release,” calling this “a precondition for any inclusive political dialogue.” He said France supports a request by the Philippines, this year’s ASEAN chair, for the bloc’s Special Envoy to be granted a meeting with Aung San Suu Kyi. Macron also wrote that he raised the matter directly with Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul during Anutin’s visit to Paris on 25 May, and noted that France had backed a one-year renewal of the European Union’s Myanmar sanctions regime on 27 April.