France and Germany: we can give Navalny medical care in Europe

Macron, who hosted Merkel at his summer residence in a medieval island fortress in the Mediterranean, said he was keen to see the results of an investigation into what had caused Navalny's illness. The French leader said France was ready to provide all assistance that Navalny needed, including asylum and medical care.

Germany's Angela Merkel and France's Emmanuel Macron said on Friday they stood ready to provide medical care on their soil for Russian opposition leader Alexander Navalny, who is gravely ill after aides said he was poisoned.

Speaking at a joint news conference after talks in southern France, Macron and Merkel said they were deeply concerned at what was happening to Navalny, one of the fiercest critics of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Macron, who hosted Merkel at his summer residence in a medieval island fortress in the Mediterranean, said he was keen to see the results of an investigation into what had caused Navalny's illness.

The French leader said France was ready to provide all assistance that Navalny needed, including asylum and medical care. Navalny began feeling ill on a plane to Moscow on Thursday morning after drinking tea at an airport cafe in the Siberian city of Tomsk.

His condition became so serious that the plane made an emergency landing at the city of Omsk, en route to Moscow, where he was carried off on a stretcher. Kira Yarmysh, his spokeswoman, said he was in intensive care in a serious but stable condition, and on an artificial lung ventilator in a hospital in Omsk, about 2,200 km (1,400 miles) east of the Russian capital.