It is part of France’s self-image to be a global player. But when Emmanuel Macron took office in 2017, French foreign policy was in a kind of hibernation. The new president left no doubt that he had geopolitical ambitions and wanted his country to be an active player on the world stage again. His strategy of disruption, which had surprisingly helped him to power in France, also seemed to be the right recipe for foreign policy: simply do everything differently than before.
Initially, the Frenchman seemed to have succeeded. He flattered the ego of US President Donald Trump by inviting him to the military parade in Paris and to dinner in the Eiffel Tower. In 2019 he received Russian President Vladimir Putin first at the Palace of Versailles and then at his vacation home, Fort Brégançon. From today’s perspective, these are strange images. At that time you could still file them under Realpolitik. But the question arises as to Macron’s strategic vision.
Just before the war, and even during the first few weeks, the President remained convinced of the need to design a new security architecture for Europe, including Moscow. He adamantly stuck to his credo: If Russia is not considered part of Europe, it will run into China’s arms and new, even more dangerous bloc formations are to be expected.
In 2019, he accused his own diplomats of undermining the new Russia policy by sabotaging rapprochement with Russia. An outrageous accusation, which he spiced up with a promise to take action against this “deep state”, a kind of state within a state. The supposed “deep state” simply saw more clearly than the top employer that Putin’s word counts for nothing.
In early February, on the return flight from Moscow, Macron assured him that Putin had promised him that he would withdraw his troops from Belarus and revive the Minsk peace process. Contrary to what Macron believed, they were worth nothing.
For far too long, the Frenchman considered Putin a partner (albeit a difficult one) and believed to the last that he could prevent a war. Today Macron stands there as a president who has deluded himself.
This also applies to the energy crisis. Up until the outbreak of the war, France only got eleven percent of its gas from Russia and thought it could face Moscow’s threats more calmly than others. Now, because a European crisis has developed, the country, like all other partners, is falling victim to skyrocketing energy prices.
The fact that half of the French nuclear power plants are now off the grid because repairs and routine inspections are taking too long makes matters worse. The situation is so serious that Macron felt compelled to convene a crisis summit in the Security Council’s military format. The nuclear power France, which has relied on its military and energy independence for so long, is just as fragile in this crisis as everyone else.
In the meantime, Macron has presented his new foreign policy in a two-hour speech to his ambassadors, whom he had previously dismissed. However, that seemed like a verbal dance: Macron completed his turn to Russia without mea culpa. He attuned the French to a “long war”, but nevertheless insisted that he wanted to continue talking to Moscow. In order to continue to maintain French influence, France must defend its “freedom of action and willingness to engage in dialogue”. Macron only moved “minimally and most reluctantly,” commented a diplomat.
That said, there can be no serious doubt that France has stood by Ukraine from the start. The French delivered arms quickly and proved to be a reliable ally from the very beginning by immediately detaching soldiers to NATO’s eastern flank.
Macron is playing an unfortunate dual role for now though. He failed as a mediator – a role he took on at Zelensky’s request. In his total of 22 phone calls with Putin, he achieved nothing. Instead, with his words that one should not humiliate Russia, he caused lasting damage and caused disbelief in Eastern Europe.
“Russia’s humiliation” is not a question of dialogue, whether one can continue talking to Moscow or not, says the French diplomat Michel Duclos, who prepared a study on the subject on behalf of the liberal think tank Institut Montaigne, but a question of weapons: “To Russia not to humiliate, Russia shouldn’t lose, yes, it should win”, that’s what the Eastern European neighbors understand by that.
With his sentence, Macron helped to strengthen the loose federation of Central and Eastern European states and to weaken Franco-German influence.
In the face of the war of aggression, Germany and France have both lost their claim to leadership in the EU, France through its poorly targeted activism, Germany through its hesitant passivity.