Brazil’s President rejects G7 aid to fight Amazon fires, says Macron must apologize

Despite declaring an emergency and claiming he doesn’t have enough resources to fight the fire, Brazil’s President rejected the aid offered by G7 countries.

According to CNN, the Chief of Staff of the Brazilian President Onyx Lorenzoni remarked, “We are thankful, but maybe those resources would be more relevant to reforest Europe.”

However, on Tuesday morning, Bolsonaro threw some doubt onto the comments made by his Chief of Staff.

“Did I say that? Did I? Did Jair Bolsonaro speak?” He said. He further added that he would only respond if Macron “withdrew his insults of him.”

Brazil called France’s idea of global aid for the Amazon an example of colonialism.

“Macron is unable to avoid a preventable fire in a church that is at a World Heritage Site and he wants to show us what is for our country? He has a lot to look after at home and the French colonies,” Lorenzoni said.

“Brazil is a democratic nation, free and never had colonial or imperialistic practices which might be (the) objective of Frenchman Macron,” Lorenzoni added.

The conflict between Macron and Bolsonaro escalated recently when Bolsonaro made fun of Macron’s wife on a Facebook post.

The meme was posted as a comment to one of Bolsonar’s posts. He replied to the meme saying “Don’t humiliate the guy … haha.”

Macron described the remark as “extremely disrespectful.”

“He had extremely disrespectful comments towards my wife,” Macron said.

“I think that Brazilians, a great people, are a bit ashamed of this behaviour,” Macron added. “As I have a lot of friendship and respect for the Brazilian people, I hope that they will quickly have a president who is up to the job.”