What followed didn't address what I asked.
Why did France and Germany not want Ukraine in NATO?
You haven't stated why, but Merkel did.
That old commie is more honest than you.
I answered your question.
I’ll dumb it down.
EU NATO has no principle objections to ANY country applying to join NATO. The “open door policy” has been in place ever since the alliance was set up.
Russia can apply. Ukraine can apply. Even China could apply.
Even the USSR accepted it. But the USSR set up the Warsaw Pact to prevent countries east of the BRD from exercising that option. Some call it Detente, others call it Ostpolitik. Kowtowing to the Soviets and throwing all of Eastern Europe under the bus for half a century kept the peace that only the hardliners in the Soviet Union were jonesing to break.
Merkel was reticent because Putin has revived Ostpolitik but with the Stalin rehabilitating, Dugin following, Cand Catherine the Great worshipping Empire Restoration revisionists taking the Soviet place as the aggressor.
Her own words confirmed that she first resisted NATO invitations to Ukraine because she feared Russia would start wars (which it has done); she then resisted because it was impossible to invite Ukraine in while Russia was looking for any excuse to go on a wider attack.
Russia’s been at cyber war with Europe and the USA for two decades. They started it while Europe was falling over itself to thaw relations with Moscow. We didn’t poke the bear; the bear was poking us relentlessly without getting a slap back and the more we did nothing, the bolder Putin got.
In short, if Putin wasn’t such an Ostpolitik asshole, Merkel would have no objections to Ukraine joining NATO, and now she’s realised that forcing “strategic neutrality” onto Ukraine served nobody’s interests but Putin’s.