Between jabs at Donald Trump's US trade tariffs and criticism of Beijing's assertiveness in the South China Sea, French President Emmanuel Macron warned Vietnamese students Tuesday that "on the impulse of a superpower, everything can change".

Macron is in Vietnam as part of a six-day Southeast Asian tour that includes Indonesia and Singapore, as he tries to pitch his offer of a "third way" between the United States and China to a region caught up in a confrontation between the two.

Originally published on doc.afp.com, part of the BLOX Digital Content Exchange.