There is no doubt that the French are a self-sufficient bunch. After all, it was a Frenchman who once wrote, “Hell is other people.”

COVID-19 or not, the French rarely travel abroad for holidays. In terms of food, most French people think they have it best. And at housewarming parties in Paris, the music playlist is usually primarily made up of chansons and French rap classics.

And despite President Emmanuel Macron’s attempts to turn Europe into a global “balancing power,” what happens abroad doesn’t seem to spark much interest at home. The evening news on the public channel on average dedicates 16 percent of its coverage to European and foreign news. By comparison, that proportion rises to 50 percent in Germany. No surprise then that polls show the average French person knows little about the functioning of the EU.

But if this cliché about French aloofness is easily backed up with data points, another common trope about the Gauls doesn’t: that of French arrogance.  At least when it comes to the present, the French are brutally self-critical.

Ruminating

In fact, France seem to be among the least chauvinistic countries in Europe. Asked whether they think their culture is superior to others, 36 percent of the French answered “yes” in a recent poll. This compares to 46 percent in the United Kingdom and 45 percent in Germany.

Or take the COVID-19 crisis: unlike other nations, the Republic’s citoyens won’t rally around the flag. Among Europeans, the French give their government the lowest grades for its handling of the pandemic. Never mind that four of France’s neighbors have significantly higher death-per-capita rates. Never mind either that France’s short-time work benefits are among the most generous, also explaining why consumption is almost back to pre-crisis levels.

Of course, one could explain the French’s dim view of the state’s COVID-19 response as being due to Macron’s unpopularity. But by French standards, the president is actually polling relatively well. At 39 percent, Macron’s approval ratings surpass his predecessors François Hollande (23 percent) and Nicolas Sarkozy (35 percent) at the same point in their terms.

The negative view the French have of their country goes far beyond the complaint du jour. As Macron put it, “We are a country that for decades is divided and in doubt.”

Livre de Plage

Claudia Senik, an economics professor at the Paris School of Economics researching happiness, might have one explanation for why the French are so downbeat about themselves.

Studying cross-national polls, she found that the French have much lower levels of life satisfaction than other countries with similar socio-economic profiles. Senik observed that even when living abroad, French expats are less happy than the local population. This led her to argue that there must be something about France’s cultural “mentality” and education that makes them less happy than their wealth would otherwise suggest.

It’s easy to see where Senik is getting her cues: The French associate intelligence with skepticism. This is still the country that gave birth to René Descartes and existentialism. Today’s best-selling authors are the likes of Virginie Despentes, Michel Houellebecq, and Édouard Louis, who depict contemporary France as a decaying and violent society. More conciliatory books are relegated to the livres de plage category: A distraction to accompany your sunbathing at the beach, but not serious literature.

Finally, there is also a “foul your own nest” premium. Actor Gerard Depardieu insults the French as “a people of idiots” and takes on Russian citizenship. He is only surpassed by comedian Louis de Funès in box office sales. The late rock’n’roll and pop icon Johnny Hallyday moved to Switzerland in the 2000s bashing France’s tax system. Still, the country’s entire political elite joined the roughly 1 million French who flooded the streets of Paris to attend the star’s funeral in 2017. The French love the ones that hate them.

Declinism

Nonetheless, there is more to France’s ruthless self-criticism and declinist tradition than intellectual vanity. Questioned about his negativism, Houellebecq wondered whether he is depressive or the world is depressing.

Indeed, the state of the world has not helped. In geopolitical terms, the former imperial power has long been in decline. And France’s dirigiste economy and society made the country look passé for much of the last 30 years of liberal hegemony.

Add to this the exceptional expectations the French have of their state, and France’s malaise is unsurprising. Frustration is a function of expectations minus reality, psychologists say. The republic’s moto of “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,” written above every school entrance, is a high bar compared to Germany’s “Unity, Law, and Freedom.”

No wonder the French see their past presidents as a succession of failures. No wonder France has been leading from behind in the OECD’s trust in government indicator for a long time. The paradox, however, is that despite the fact that politics unremittingly disappoints the French, they continue to perceive the state as the solution to each and every single economic and societal problem.

Beyond the Nation State

Another interesting finding from Senik’s research is that foreigners that move to France gradually adopt the locals’ tendency to see the wine glass half empty. It’s been a bit more than two years since I’ve moved to Paris, so please allow me to finish on a slightly optimistic note.

First, the country’s gloomy intellectual establishment is wrong-footed by their compatriots every once in a while. Houellebecq rubbed his eyes in astonishment at Macron’s election in 2017, commenting, “This is the first time I’ve seen positive thinking actually work.”

And second, because of their state-centrism the French sense more strongly the limits of the nation state in today’s world. Europe is no longer just an instrument for French great power status, as Charles de Gaulle viewed it, but a necessity for France to protect its way of life. This explains how Macron managed to get elected not in spite of, but rather thanks to his ambitious EU platform. And this change in the scale of thinking—going beyond the nation state—is what the world needs to confront most major challenges.

And now on to your livre de plage!

The post Pariscope: France’s Sharpest Critics appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

© Claude Cadi

In 1974, the comedy “Les Chinois à Paris” created a minor diplomatic crisis. The plot of the film: Communist China has conquered Europe. France falls without any resistance. Setting up their headquarters in the Galeries Lafayette department store, the Chinese turn Europe into their economic hinterland: Germany is ordered to produce cars, the UK bowler hats, and the Dutch bicycles. The French offer their services as experienced collaborators.

When the movie hit the screens, Beijing’s ambassador to Paris was appalled by the portrayal of China as an imperialist power and threatened “consequences” should the Élysée not ban the film. The left-wing newspaper Libération called for a boycott of the film. Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and other French intellectuals were celebrating Mao’s “cultural revolution” at the time.

The film was meant as an implausible comedy and a parody of France under German occupation; but maybe it was just ahead of its time. With its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) Beijing is now trying to plug Europe into the Chinese sphere of influence. And the Chinese are quite literally taking control of the Galeries Lafayette; 30 percent of the luxury department store’s revenue is generated by Chinese tourists!

But contrary to the movie’s French submission, France is today at the forefront of Europe’s resistance to China, for two reasons: the geopolitical and the economic.

Paris-Delhi-Canberra

For Paris, Beijing’s hegemonic posture poses a security challenge. 1.6 million French citizens live in the Indo-Pacific. France’s overseas territories in the Indian and Pacific Oceans include huge exclusive economic zones. Paris wants brakes on Chinese expansionism and maritime law to be upheld in the region.

Macron is thus trying to build an “Indo-Pacific axis” between Paris, Delhi, Canberra, and perhaps even Tokyo in order to increase its weight vis-à-vis Beijing. “If we want to be respected as equals by China, we have to organize ourselves,” Macron said in 2018 at an Australian naval base.

Since that speech, France has concluded a strategic partnership with Australia. It also regularly holds “two-plus-two” talks between defense and foreign ministers with Japan to discuss maritime issues in the East and South China Seas. What’s more, the Élysée sends warships to pass through the Taiwan Strait and French submarines patrol around New Caledonia’s coast.

And of course, Macron hopes that establishing France as an “Indo-Pacific power” will yield some further benefits: increased geopolitical importance for France and a rebalancing of Beijing’s European focus from Berlin to Paris. Arms sales in a region that is diversifying away from US suppliers is another objective. Australia has signed a contract for 12 French submarines, India is considering stepping up its order of 36 Rafale fighter jets, Indonesia wants French fighters and submarines and Malaysia French frigates.

Paris-Berlin-Brussels

When it comes to the economy, Paris—unlike Berlin—has seen China’s rise as more of a threat than an opportunity for some time. Yes, the Chinese have become the most important buyers of French luxury goods. But the widening of China’s French trade surplus runs parallel to France’s multi-decade decline as an industrial power.

Moreover, Paris has a tradition of thinking about the economy in strategic terms. Asked whether France will exclude Huawei from France’s 5G network, Macron replied that “I’m just saying we have two European manufacturers: Ericsson and Nokia,“ before adding “this is a sovereign matter,” as it concerns data protection and security issues. In Beijing, Macron stated that the BRI cannot just be “one-way” and that “these roads cannot be those of a new hegemony, transforming those that they cross into vassals.”

Paris has no illusions about its lack of leverage vis-à-vis Beijing. The Élysée thus wants to Europeanize economic relations with China. When President Xi Jinping visited Paris in March 2019, Macron asked Chancellor Angela Merkel and then-European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker to join their meetings. At the end of the year, Macron invited European trade commissioner Phil Hogan and Germany’s research minister to join him on his trip to China. Addressing a group of French and German business leaders in Beijing, he said: “The more we play the Franco-German and in particular the European card, the more we are credible. The better results we will have.”

Macron thus supports Merkel’s initiative for an investment deal with China. But he doesn’t want to settle for small change. He wants an “ambitious agreement” that provides “full reciprocity.” And he wants to set the right incentives. It was Macron who initiated the idea of an EU-wide foreign investment screening mechanism, which was adopted in 2019. Today, Paris wants to strengthen the EU’s anti-subsidy measures in extra-European trade.

In this context, China is trying to mollify Macron. Huawei promised to build its first European manufacturing site in France. In 2019, Beijing signed an agreement protecting geographical indications of French cheese and wine, a long-standing obsession of French trade diplomacy. Macron is happy to take these tributes but, so far, he hasn’t offered much in return.

Macron, the Realist

The era of French presidents like Charles de Gaulle and Jacques Chirac explicitly welcoming China’s rise hoping it would lead to a more multipolar world order are over. Macron doesn’t want “Les Chinois à Paris” nor does he want them in New Caledonia.

But notably, the Élysée is careful not to join Washington’s anti-China front either. Paris fears that a binary Sino-American competition could provoke a cascading conflict akin to the pre-World War I period. By organizing an alliance of secondary players that is willing to confront China, but with a focus on upholding the multilateral order rather than engaging in great power competition, Macron hopes to change the dynamic.

And yes, Paris has become Beijing’s most assertive partner within the EU, but Macron doesn’t think it is helpful to step on Xi’s toes when there is not much to gain. Since the beginning of his presidency, realist Macron has deprioritized human rights issues in foreign relations. Hence, the silence over Hong Kong. Instead, Macron says things like “I have the greatest respect for President Xi Jinping, and I expect no less on his behalf.” This is ultimately what Macron’s coalition building is about: make Beijing respect France.

The post Pariscope: Macron’s Ententes Cordiales Against China appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

Artwork: Claude Cadi

France has a difficult relationship with capitalism. 69 percent of the French think markets do more harm than good (55 percent in Germany), according to polls. Believing in laissez-faire is considered naive, whether it’s about the economy or raising your kids.

But this does not preclude the country from having an affinity for finance. If you want to talk to a quantitative analyst in New York who creates esoteric financial products, you’ll likely be able to do so in French. And the French have a pragmatic relationship to debt. The average household holds debt worth 121 percent of net disposable income. Before having kids, couples typically get a flat and a 25-year mortgage—a knot much harder to untie than marriage!

So when President Emmanuel Macron proposes issuing European bonds to shoulder the cost of the COVID-19 crisis together, the French don’t worry much. Debt is part of life and contracting it together part of being a community. “Solidarity means common financial means,” French finance minister Bruno Le Maire said outright when detailing his proposal.

Siamo Tutti Italiani

Macron’s insistence on a European debt-instrument is primarily about Italy. Paris is seriously concerned about the economic and political dynamics across the Alps.

Lega’s Matteo Salvini and especially Giorgia Meloni from the post-fascist Brothers of Italy are not so different from Marine Le Pen. Salvini’s and Meloni’s parties together are polling above 40 percent, high enough to give them a parliamentary majority. With the Five Star Movement potentially splitting over whether to use the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), snap elections are not out of the question.

Beyond the short-term, Paris believes the EU’s fate will be decided in Rome, too. Italy, like the rest of Europe, will need to mobilize enormous funds to weather the crisis. But Italy’s debt stands at 135 percent of GDP. So far, the Italian government has only dared to disburse direct fiscal measures worth 1.5 percent of GDP to keep its business and citizens afloat. By comparison, Berlin’s measures amount to more than 4.5 percent of GDP, as research by the Jacques Delors Center shows.

No wonder Milan bankers worry about a wave of insolvencies crashing through the country’s economy. And how could the populists be kept at bay in such a scenario? For Europeans the motto is really “siamo tutti italiani” (“We are all Italians.”), as Le Maire declared. And for Paris in particular. French banks are by far Europe’s largest holders of Italian Treasuries.

Rendezvous with Reality

Even before the current crisis, it was clear to Paris that Europe had to become more of a transfer union—by borrowing together and increasing EU spending. There is simply no way around it in a currency union. That’s why most German economists initially opposed the euro, arguing in a famous 1992 manifesto that it would inevitably necessitate “high transfer payments as part of a fiscal equalization.”

Macron sees no value in moral hazard arguments. Rome has run a primary budget surplus since 2011. Once in the debt trap, no austerity diet can get you out of it. But demanding repentance without the promise of deliverance cannot work in the long-run. France’s moral hazard policy of drowning Germany in debt after World War I backfired. That’s why the allies cancelled Germany’s debt after World War II, Macron recently lectured the Financial Times.

For Paris the feeling is thus that the day where German politics finally has to bend to economic reality has come. In fact, in Macron’s eyes the negotiations are less about whether there will be some form of debt mutualization, but how it is done. Either one holds on to today’s method of the European Central Bank buying Italian Treasuries, or Europeans go for the “clean” and honest alternative: common debt.

Geopolitical Grants

Macron, of course, prefers the second option. There are four reasons why.

First, the current solution undermines the ECB’s monetary independence and comes with legal risks. The ECB’s decision to lift the limit on how many bonds from a eurozone member it can buy will almost certainly be challenged in German courts.

Second, if the ECB does the heavy-lifting, the EU does not get to claim credit for helping Rome. Macron understands that this crisis is also a battle of narratives. That’s why he  gives interviews in the Italian press defending the EU.

Third, European bonds are another facet of Macron’s “sovereign Europe” idea. Having a large euro-denominated sovereign debt market with an abundance of safe assets is a precondition for overcoming Europe’s dollar dependence. European bonds would be a first step toward countering Washington’s habit of weaponizing the dollar to override EU policy, for example on Iran.

And most importantly, only if the money is raised through a European bond can it be given to the worst-hit EU members via grants. Sure, European loans would yield some interest savings for Rome and Madrid. But that won’t be enough. As Macron said after the EU’s leaders videoconference on April 23, whether the EU or the ECB acts as creditor, the loans still end up worsening Italy’s debt-to-GDP ratio. Paris wants outright transfers, may be also for itself. The lockdowns are particularly costly for service-oriented economies such as France.

En Douceur

In order to get what he wants, Macron is dropping the bulldozer approach to EU politics that hasn’t served him well so far. When he came to office, Macron did not lose time to demanded a sizeable budget for the eurozone. He hardly took into account other countries sensibilities in his campaign and ended up with next to nothing: a budget without money.

For once, Macron is not moving alone; he has managed to build an alliance around his cause. It even includes low-debt countries like Luxembourg. This is no longer just a North-South debate.

For once, Macron is framing the problem rather than dictating what he thinks is the best solution, giving Paris more negotiation space. It doesn’t matter whether it is a separate vehicle or the European Commission that issues bonds and hands out grants, as long as it is done, Macron said after the inconclusive EU summit.

And for once, Macron isn’t asking for the impossible. He doesn’t campaign for a move to fiscal union all at once. Instead, he reassures Berlin that the debt-issuance and spending measures should be time-limited.

It appears to be working. Angela Merkel, for the first time, stated she can imagine the European Commission issuing more bonds to finance the recovery. And Merkel told the Bundestag she wants to massively increase the country’s contribution to the EU budget, which serves as the main tool of fiscal transfers within the union. Both would cross traditional German red lines. It is still early days, but Paris is more hopeful than it has been for a while.

The post Pariscope: Macron’s New Europe Tactic appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

“We are at war,” Emmanuel Macron declared on March 16, announcing a nation-wide curfew. As in war, France’s president wants to mobilize the whole nation to achieve one goal: defeating the virus.

Macron even invoked the spirit of the Union Sacrée—the truce of all French political parties after Germany declared war on France in 1914—and suspended the adoption of the pension reform that recently caused the greatest social fracture in decades.

In times of crisis, the French are looking for a strong leader. More than 35 million tuned into Macron’s speech, over half the population of France. The 2018 world cup final of Les Bleusagainst Croatia attracted 26 million viewers. And when Chancellor Angela Merkel addressed the German nation on March 18, 25 million watched.

And the dramatic speech worked for Macron. Polls show that 76 percent found him convincing. Parisians are staying at home in their often tiny apartments. My flat lies in Europe’s second most densely populated neighborhood (52,218 persons per square kilometer). For the first time since moving here I can hear the birds chirping.

War Economy

Macron’s war analogy is shocking at first glance. But it is the right frame of thinking, especially for the economy.

Traditional war economies share three characteristics: First, government spending explodes as the state funds its war effort. Second, the goal of monetary policy becomes the financing of the state. Third, economic policy shifts to the left as governments must project hope of a better future to keep morale high.

In his speech, Macron ticked all three boxes: money should be no object in Europe’s fight against coronavirus. After the European Central Bank presented its first batch of meagre crisis measures on March 12, the Élysée immediately criticized the ostensibly independent central bank saying monetary policy had to go way further.

To the French Macron promises a strengthened welfare state, a more sovereign Europe, and a rethink of globalization at the end of the crisis. “The day after, when we will have prevailed, won’t be like the day before. We will be stronger morally, we will have learned, and I will draw the lessons, all the lessons,” the president said with determination.

Europe-Building

Finally, wars have often served as the catalyst for either nation-building or political disintegration. To stave off collapse, in times of extraordinary stress, heterogenous communities need to learn to trust each other, cooperate outside familiar structures and design new institutions—or fail.

In this context, the president of the Grande Nation made Europe a key theme in his first televised coronavirus address, stressing that this is a common struggle to be faced as “Europeans”—“the virus has no passport,” Macron said. Badly affected regions should be isolated, and it should be Europe’s borders rather than national borders that should be closed. “It is at this level that we have built our freedoms and liberties,” the French president emphasized.

And to get Europe’s war economy going, Macron’s eurozone vision now stands a chance of being realized. In a crisis, the tables turn in favor of integrationists. Saying “no” to any form of fiscal integration doesn’t work anymore for the “frugal” countries if they don’t want to put the currency union in peril. As in the 2010-2014 eurozone banking and sovereign debt crisis, when Berlin had to accept the setup of the EU’s bailout funds. Alongside Rome, Paris now proposes issuing “corona bonds” to coordinate the funding of Europe’s fight against the virus.

Still, so far the coronavirus crisis is yet another example of Macron trying to take European leadership and making bold proposals that lead nowhere because Berlin resists them. Furthermore, Macron is getting caught up in nationalist reflexes.

In her address to the nation last week, Merkel didn’t mention Europe once. When asked during a press conference about fiscal solidarity in the EU, the chancellor was evasive, saying cryptically, “We have to take care that we are now not institutionalizing something that has always been demanded by some.”

And while Macron celebrated the German federal states of Baden-Württemberg and Saarland taking on corona patients from French Alsace, the epicenter of the French Coronavirus crisis, Merkel’s not so subtle social distancing from her neighbors perplexed many in Paris once again. In fact, there is frustration at the level of disinterest in Europe-building.

France First?

That Europe is currently practicing a danse macabre is not all Berlin’s fault. It was Paris that fired the first shot at undermining the EU’s core, the single market. On March 3, Macron announced the requisition of all medical protection equipment in France. This prompted Berlin to ban all exports of medical equipment the next day.

Germany’s health minister, Jens Spahn, said on March 6 that the export ban could be lifted if an EU-wide ban was agreed. His French counterpart defended the requisition the following day, arguing it prevented masks being given to the highest bidder and that Brussels should coordinate the distribution of stocks. However, it took another ten days before Paris and Berlin agreed to drop their export restrictions to fellow EU member states on March 16.

It’s not only future historians who will quibble over who is responsible for this blunder. Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said pointedly, “We see in Europe that solidarity doesn’t function when push comes to shove. There will be a lot to discuss when this over.”

It’s the Narrative

In today’s Italy, Lega leader Matteo Salvini is successfully pushing his narrative of Europe’s abandonment of Italy. The mask export ban will leave a deep scar in Italy’s collective memory. Italian social media is rife with posts arguing that a statement by the European Central Bank president, Christine Lagarde, to a Handelsblatt journalist that the ECB should not put a tab on Italian government bonds yields is part of a deliberate plan to bring Italy to its knees to benefit Merkel. Italian mainstream papers decry Lagarde’s “anti-Italian attitude” and eagerness to please Berlin.

The health crisis has already morphed into an economic crisis. To prevent it from becoming a European political crisis, Merkel and Macron must suppress their nationalist instincts and express their joint commitment to the currency union, the single market and those EU members like Italy with less fiscal leeway to fight the virus. Italians needs to hear this, so that Europe stands a chance of regaining their trust.

The post Pariscope: Imagine Macron Declares War and No One Shows Up appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

Artwork © Claude Cadi

What do German Financial Times columnist Wolfgang Münchau, French sociologist Didier Eribon, and Brexiteer-in-chief Nigel Farage have in common? They all think France is ripe for a takeover by the far-right Marine Le Pen.

The argument: Emmanuel Macron has failed on all counts. The French president has gotten nowhere with his plans for EU reform. His domestic policy agenda has divided the country. In a run-off with Le Pen, left-wingers will stay at home. We’ve seen it in the United States and Italy: centrist reformers pave the way for populists. the 2022 French presidential vote could be the shock election continental Europe has not yet had.

Whether this scenario plays out or not, how you think about tomorrow influences how you act today. Parisians joke about how a Le Pen win could provoke a welcome correction to the capital’s overheated housing market. Politicians in Berlin say they are hesitant on eurozone integration because faith in protest-ridden France is low. What happens to the EU if the notoriously “pas content” French vote Le Pen into the Élysée?

Election Time

France is entering its next election cycle. Municipal elections are coming up in March. Macron’s La République En Marche (LREM) is certain to perform badly. The upstart party isn’t even fielding candidates in many of France’s 34,839 municipalities. Moreover, in Paris, LREM is facing the difficult task of trying to replace the popular outgoing mayor Anne Hidalgo, a socialist rumored to be eyeing a bid the Élysée. To make things worse, the LREM mayoral contender Benjamin Griveaux stepped down just weeks before the elections because of a sex video scandal; his replacement, Minister of Health Agnès Buzyn, faces an uphill struggle, to say the least. In the spring of 2021, regional elections will follow. Here, LREM will try to coopt or defeat the remaining heavyweights from the center-right Les Républicains who could challenge Macron in 2022.

In the dynastic Rassemblement National (RN), the rebranded Front National, Le Pen has already announced she will run for the presidency for a third time. With her niece waiting in the wings, this might be her last shot. Le Pen has been crisscrossing la douce France, trying to soften her image. No more talk of exiting the euro. No mention of her confidante Axel Loustau, who practices the Nazi salute. Instead, Le Pen now wants to change the EU from within and has commemorated the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp 75 years ago.

In this election context, the Élysée is shifting from policy to politics. Macron has delivered the key policies of his 2017 campaign program: reforms of the labor market, unemployment insurance, taxation, and now pensions. In France, change rarely comes without a street fight. But after three years of social conflict, the country that celebrates the revolutionary myth like no other is desperate for some peace.

And Macron himself needs things to calm down so that his reforms can unfold to their full potential. Over the next two years, Macron will try to sit tight at home, conduct foreign policy, and focus on his campaign.

Unholy Alliance

Macron is starting from a passable, though not great, position to try and become the first reelected president since the late Jacques Chirac. His approval ratings (34 percent) are much higher than François Hollande’s (17 percent), but a bit lower than Nicolas Sarkozy’s (37 percent) at similar points in their presidential terms.

Just like Sarkozy, Macron is passionately hated by many. For fervent left-wingers and the far-right, the former Rothschild banker who told an unemployed man that he could easily find a job by “crossing the street” is a neo-liberal capitalist. Both groups also agree that Macron is Angela Merkel’s lackey.

At the end of the TV debate ahead of the second round of the 2017 elections, Le Pen said: “France will be governed by a woman from Sunday: it is either me or Ms Merkel—that’s the reality.” In a speech in parliament after the 2017 elections, left-wing nationalist Jean-Luc Mélenchon exclaimed: “We haven’t voted for Merkel!”

“In politics, shared hatreds are almost always the basis of friendships,” Alexis de Tocqueville said. Indeed, Mélenchon finds increasingly kind words for Le Pen. The France Insoumise (FI) leader labels Merkel as “anti-humanist,” but congratulates Le Pen for “progressing toward humanism” and joining the pension reform protests.

In the first round of the 2017 presidential elections Le Pen got 21.3 percent of the vote, Mélenchon 19.6 percent, and Gaullist euroskeptic Nicolas Dupont-Aignan 4.7 percent. So are Münchau, Éribon and Farage right? Is that the basis on which the self-declared “common-sense politician” Le Pen will accede to the Élysée this time?

Macron‘s Track Record

This narrative has a major problem. In 2017, all the conditions were in place for a Le Pen win. The economy was growing at a snail’s pace, the 2015 terror attacks had traumatized the country, and the refugee crisis—coupled with Michel Houllebecq’s novel Soumission—had fueled an absurd narrative of a “Muslim takeover” across the country. But despite this, Le Pen got only 33.9 percent of the vote in the second round.

Absent a major crisis, Macron will be the first president since Chirac to stand for reelection with a positive economic track record. France’s investment-to-GDP ratio has surpassed Germany’s. Hiring a minimum-wage worker in France is now cheaper than in Germany. Unemployment has dropped from 9.3 percent to 7.9 percent since Macron took over and is continuing in this direction. Tax cuts are boosting spending power, and ultra-low interest rates allow the Élysée to continue running fiscal deficits. Macron learned from Obama and former Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi that sticking to fiscal responsibility in the face of populists is self-defeating.

While having a decent economy is not enough to counter the far-right—if it were, right-wing populists in Switzerland wouldn’t get 26 percent of the vote—it certainly helps. Meanwhile, on the issue of migration, Macron is difficult to attack as he follows a hardline policy himself.

Moreover, the RN has struggled to build momentum, despite the Yellow Vests protest movement. Last year’s European election was a disappointment. The party lost 1.5 percentage points compared to 2015 and more than halved its share among French voters under 35, despite having installed the charismatic 23-year-old Jordan Bardella as its lead candidate.

A Beneficial Narrative

Lastly, France’s political landscape is evolving. A standoff between Macron and Le Pen is not a foregone conclusion. At the European elections, the Greens (13.5 percent) clearly outperformed the far-left FI (6.3 percent). Mélenchon has been drifting toward irrelevance, in large part because of his flirtation with the far-right.

It is the Greens that have caught the tailwind of the Greta-wave and are in the running to win some important cities for the first time, such as northern Rouen and southern Montpellier. In 2022, the dominant force on the left is likely to be Green and pro-European. Not the nationalist Mélenchon. This is a problem for Macron who has delivered little on his “Make the Planet Great Again” pledge.

Talking up the likelihood of a Le Pen victory in 2022 is a beneficial narrative for many. For the radical left, it supports the argument that the EU needs to become more than a “neoliberal project.” For Germans, it provides a good excuse to hold back on EU integration. For Brexiteers, it vindicates their decision to leave. And for Macron, this discourse allows him to portray himself as the only alternative to Le Pen and to sideline the Greens.

But like the gloomy picture of a collapse of the EU—which Münchau and Farage are also equally apt to evoke—the specter of Le Pen in the Élysée is unlikely to materialize anytime soon.

The post Pariscope: The Useful Le Pen Threat appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

In July 2017, barely two months after taking office, Emmanuel Macron made Libya his first foreign policy initiative. The French president leveraged his image as Europe’s political superstar to orchestrate a meeting between the Libyan Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj and renegade military leader Khalifa Haftar.

Looking back at Macron’s first attempt at ending Libya’s civil war is illuminating, not least because it illustrates three key tenants of Macron’s foreign policy vision.

The Macron Doctrine

First, France’s president believes you cannot shape reality if you don’t recognize the facts on the ground. Whether you like it or not, General Haftar was in control of most of the country’s east and south in 2017. To stabilize the country, Macron was convinced that it was no use ignoring these realities; one had to talk to Haftar.

Macron believes that France is destined to be the player that can speak to all sides. Yes, the country is a member of the European Union and NATO. But, as Macron outlined in a 2019 speech addressing his assembled ambassadors, he sees France’s role as a global “balancing power” with an independent voice.

Second, Macron prioritizes security over other issues. In summer 2017, the so-called Islamic State had just been driven out of central Libya. Sarraj dominated Tripoli and Libya’s western coastline, which is key to controlling migration across the Mediterranean. Italy and Germany were thus primarily interested in collaborating with al-Sarraj’s UN-backed government.

For Paris however, the main concern remained fighting terrorism and keeping pressure on the fundamentalist militias active in the Sahel. Since 2014, France has deployed up to 4,500 troops from Mauritania to Chad to stabilize the region. Macron’s predecessor, the former president François Hollande, had already banked on Haftar not allowing Islamist militias active in Chad and Niger to use southern Libya as a safe haven.

Third, according to Macron, action is always better than passivity. If you don’t act and get involved, others will decide for you. In his view, France must get engaged in Libya if it wants to prevent resurgent Russia or neo-imperial Turkey from calling the shots. Sovereignty-obsessed Macron hates to be someone else’s hostage.

Fool Me Once

All of these considerations led Macron to invite Haftar to Paris in July 2017, thereby elevating the erstwhile Gaddafi ally to Sarraj’s equal. At first sight, the meeting looked like a success. A ceasefire was agreed and the two opponents even vowed to hold national elections.

In reality, the initiative turned out to be a complete failure. In hindsight, it illustrates a pattern of foreign policy mistakes that the otherwise adaptive French president keeps repeating.

As with the embrace of Vladimir Putin’s Russia, opening the door to an international pariah can help put France at the center of the geopolitical attention for a moment. But it doesn’t necessarily yield meaningful results. Offering Haftar the international recognition he was longing for, Macron may have in fact emboldened the military man to take the battle to Tripoli in an attempt to become Libya’s ruler.

Moreover, Macron’s Libyan summit wasn’t coordinated with Rome or Brussels, and none of the regional powers involved in the conflict were present. Macron is prone to the notion that he can do everything on his own. At home this has worked to some extent. On the international stage his unilateral approach is doomed to fail.

Lastly, for Haftar, as for Putin, shaking hands with Macron was a free lunch. But for the French president, his overture cost him a lot of good will and trust in Europe. Italy had a long-standing Libya policy of supporting al-Sarraj. By officially courting Haftar, Macron managed to speedily turn Rome against him. Hosting Putin and calling for Europe to reach out to Russia had the same effect with Poland.

Doubling Down

Of course, Macron wouldn’t be sitting in the Élysée today if he was discouraged easily. In April 2019, 76-year-old Haftar marched on Tripoli in an attempt to overthrow the al-Sarraj government. With Egypt and the United Arab Emirates—both French strategic allies and important arms purchasers—and even Russia supporting Haftar, what could go wrong? Did Macron want to force a decision?

Rogue military strongman Haftar most likely did not ask Cairo, Abu Dhabi, Moscow, or Paris for permission. Nonetheless, Haftar’s troops were found to be in possession of French arms and Paris blocked an EU statement condemning the Tripoli offensive. In a TV interview following last year’s G7 meeting in Biarritz, Macron came close to acknowledging France’s involvement in Libya.

But the offensive stalled. And by siding with Haftar, Macron has lost his posture as an honest broker, leaving German Chancellor Angela Merkel to have her own go at a Libya peace conference. This might also turn out to be the case regarding Russia. If Moscow and Brussels ever do move toward closer cooperation, Macron won’t be brokering the deal: Europe’s Russia-skeptics simply don’t trust him.

Jouer Sur Deux Tableaux

For the family picture at the January Libya conference in Berlin, Merkel and Macron stood side by side in the center, giving the impression they were in agreement and in charge—which couldn’t have been more misleading.

Germany calls upon everyone to be reasonable, but has no idea how to bring about peace or even a ceasefire. In the classic tradition of French diplomacy, Paris, meanwhile, is hedging: while officially supporting a political solution, France continues to give Haftar diplomatic support. Most recently by accusing Turkey of sending further Syrian troops to Tripoli and violating the arms embargo agreed in Berlin.

Libya has become an illustration of not only Macron’s, but also Europe’s foreign policy malaise. France’s key concern is security, while Germany tends to focus on single policy issues such as migration. Paris wants a seat at the geopolitical bargaining table. Berlin instead is happy to take on a Swiss-style role of conference hotelier.

The tragedy is, as the Libyan case illustrates, that as long France and Germany fail to combine their forces, neither will succeed—or even matter.

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©REUTERS/Regis Duvignau

This week the European Commission adopted its stance on how to run the “Conference on the Future of Europe,” a two-year soul-searching exercise aimed at changing the way the EU works after Brexit—the pet project of French President Emmanuel Macron. But if the commission and national governments get their way, it may be a useless exercise that will be quickly forgotten.

Last week the European Parliament was the first of the EU’s three governing institutions to adopt its position on how to run the conference, set to begin in May. Their position, adopted by 494 votes to 147, would create a highly organized system of citizens’ assemblies across Europe, composed of up to 300 people each. Several bodies would be set up to run the conference, including a “conference plenary,” a “steering committee” and an “executive board.” Former Belgian prime minister Guy Verhofstadt, who has been the parliament’s Brexit spokesperson, was chosen to lead the process.

Constitutional Convention

Most significantly, the parliament would give citizens specific questions to wrestle with, involving structural changes to the EU to make it more fit for the challenges to come in the 21^st century. They want to ask citizens if they think EU elections should be more direct, for instance by directly electing the European Commission president, and if they think it should be easier for the EU to make foreign policy and tax decisions by removing the ability for a single country to use its veto. The prospect of achieving this through treaty change, something that still terrifies EU national governments since the Lisbon Treaty nightmare ten years ago, is embraced by the European Parliament. MEPs say this conference should result in major changes in how the EU works.

Indeed, what the parliament is envisioning resembles the Convention on the Future of the European Union which ran from 2002 to 2003 and ended with the Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe. That constitution was notoriously rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2005. The EU then set out on a long arduous process of ratifying the Lisbon Treaty, which contained most of the structural changes of the defeated constitution without the trappings of a federation (and therefore not subject to a referendum in France).

That was then, this is now. Macron, backed by the European Parliament, believes that the situation has changed dramatically in the last 15 years. The combined lessons of Brexit and Donald Trump have shown Europeans that a strong EU is needed to guarantee European sovereignty. In 2005 the EU was a backburner issue few people thought about, and indeed polling showed the reason for the constitution’s defeat had more to do with punishing sitting national governments than its actual contents.

The Dreaded T Word

The conference should “propose all the necessary changes to our political project, without any taboos, not even treaty revision,” Macron said when proposing the idea last year. But outside Paris, national capitals don’t feel the same way. The crises prompted by the French and Dutch constitution rejection in 2005 and the Irish Lisbon Treaty rejection in 2008 still haunt them. Last month the European Council of 28 national leaders showed little enthusiasm for the project when they half-heartedly endorsed the idea but refrained from saying anything about it.

National EU ambassadors are expected to discuss the issue this week ahead of the EU affairs ministers’ first discussion on the conference next Tuesday. But it’s very uncertain whether leaders will adopt a position at their March European Council summit—something that would be necessary for the conference to start in May as planned. More than likely, they will delay the start of the conference as long as possible—to Macron’s great irritation.

While Angela Merkel has publicly spoken positively of Macron’s idea, privately she is said to be terrified of the idea of it leading to treaty change and would prefer for it to remain a purely public relations exercise. Once again, Macron’s appeals for EU reforms are hitting a German wall.

Ursula’s Open-Ended Plan

It was within this context that the European Commission set out its vision of the conference this week—caught, as it so often is, between the ambition of the European Parliament and the conservatism of the European Council.

Commission President Ursula von der Leyen couldn’t be in Brussels herself for the adoption of the commission’s position on Wednesday, as she was speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos at the same time. “This is about Europe shaping its own future,” she told the world’s rich and powerful meeting in the Swiss mountain resort. “But to be more assertive in the world, we know we must step up in some fields. Recent events have exposed where we have to do more.”

However, the commission’s position on the future of Europe unveiled just 30 minutes later in Brussels didn’t seem to reflect this sense of urgency. Instead, the communication to citizens seems to say von der Leyen believes the EU is functioning just fine.

The commission goes into little detail about how the conference should be run, but it rejects the parliament’s idea for citizen assemblies saying instead it should “build on the well-established citizens’ dialogues.” One could be forgiven for having never heard of these town-hall-style dialogues, even though 1,850 have been held between citizens and commissioners in 650 locations across Europe, according to the commission.

Announcing the commission’s proposal to the press, Dubravka Šuica, Vice President for Democracy and Demography, said the conference should first focus on the EU’s headline policy ambitions of climate change, economic equality, and digital transformation.

A second, seemingly less important strand would focus on structural issues. A reference in an earlier version of the text to taking legislative action and proposing treaty change “if appropriate” was taken out.

“This will be a bottom-up forum for open and inclusive debate accessible to people from all corners of the union,” said Šuica. “We want to go beyond the cities, beyond the capitals, we want to reach also those who are critical toward the EU.”

Conducting the conference at sporting events or festivals could be one way of reaching those citizens who are not currently engaged, she said.

Šuica said an open-ended approach is better than one which already tells the citizens what the structural problems are that need to be solved. “This will be more a listening exercise than talking. And when we hear what citizens want, we will try to transpose this into policies and maybe some legal acts.”

An Unusable Cacophony

“We are not going to pre-empt what will be the outcome of these roundtables. We will allow citizens to tell us what they want. If they want treaty change, we are open to this. Parliament and council have more to say on this than the commission—but we have nothing against it.”

It might sound very democratic, but critics point out that it is unrealistic to expect citizens to know what the structural problems are or what treaty change means. Without asking citizens specific questions about what they want, and rather just sitting back and saying, “Tell me what you want,” the feedback is likely to result in an unusable cacophony of voices. This may perfectly suit those national leaders who don’t want the exercise to result in a specific mandate to change how the EU works.

Critics have also questioned the commission’s decision to primarily focus on current policy priorities and place secondary importance on long-term governance issues. Given this is a conference on the future of Europe, why is it being restricted to the policy preoccupations of the present?

German MEP Gabriele Bischoff, a Social Democrat member of the European Parliament’s working group on the conference, told the EUObserver news website that the commission’s position is “not very ambitious, not very clear, not very outspoken, and is not addressing what should come out of this conference.”

However, she said at least the commission has not ruled anything out, as the council seems likely to do.

Once the council adopts its position, the presidents of the three institutions will meet to agree a consolidated approach. Given that the parliament’s position will be drastically different than the council’s, von der Leyen will be the one casting the deciding vote. If she sides with the MEPs she will score points with Macron, but anger Merkel and others.

Observers say that if she decides to demure to Berlin and other national capitals on how to run the conference, it could render it a useless exercise that is ignored and then quickly forgotten.

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Artwork: Claude Cadi

The process of European integration has reached a critical point.” 25 years ago, this sentence set the stage for the famous Schäuble-Lamers memorandum and its bold vision for Europe.

The always humble foreign affairs expert Karl Lamers and the notorious Wolfgang Schäuble, both members of Germany’s Christian Democrats (CDU), warned that a “regressive nationalism” was taking hold in Europe, feeding fears of unemployment, migration, and societal change. Single countries could not tackle these problems—national sovereignty had become “an empty shell.” Indeed, only through the European Union could the continent’s nation-states be sovereign at all.

At the same time, enlargement would make the union more diverse and lead to a “significant power gain” for Germany. It would also overstretch the EU’s institutions and render it less effective. The EU was thus at risk of degenerating “into a loose formation essentially focused on economic aspects.”

But “such an ‘enhanced’ free trade area could not cope with the existential problems of European societies and their external challenges,” the two men from Baden-Württemberg argued. To secure France’s backing for enlargement and get the EU institutions ready, Bonn should propose new measures for “a strong, capable and integrated Europe.”

État-Nation vs. Europe

Their idea: the EU’s founding members (except Italy!) should pursue political union on their own and form a “core Europe” with a common migration and social policy, coordinated budget policies, and strong defense and foreign policy capacities. Building this core Europe should “reconcile two a priori contradictory goals—deepening and enlargement,” Schäuble and Lamers wrote.

The proposition got almost no traction in France. As Berlin is today, Paris in 1994 was in a state of paralysis. François Mitterrand’s presidency had entered its last year, and the socialist in the Élysée had to share power with a center-right government. And while EU flags then as now fly next to the Tricolore above every school entrance in France, Paris is, when push comes to shove, often more than hesitant to give up sovereignty for Europe’s sake. France is after all the literal État-nation, where the state created the nation and still embodies it.

The clear-sighted Schäuble and Lamers anticipated this, writing in the 1994 paper that “when German propositions are unequivocally presented, then France must also decide clearly. It has to rebut the impression that although it does not allow others to doubt its fundamental will to Europe’s unification, it time and again hesitates on concrete integration steps.”

Joschka Fischer’s Avant-garde

At the turn of millennium, Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer revived Schäuble’s “core Europe” idea. In a speech at the Humboldt University, Fischer argued a group of EU countries should form “the avant-garde, the driving force for the completion of political integration.”

This time, Paris at least replied. Addressing the Bundestag, President Jacques Chirac called for a “group of pioneers” to cooperate more closely on economic and defense policy. But for the Gaullist, “pioneers” was code for a more inter-governmental mode of cooperation that would boost France’s leverage. A “European super-state” was not the goal, Chirac said. Paris was beaming with self-confidence at the time, as France experienced a brief economic boom.

Fischer did not get far with his proposal. At the 2000 Nice summit, Berlin and Paris preferred to fight over their respective voting rights within EU bodies. The French “No” to the EU constitution in 2005 did not help either. And once Eastern enlargement was a reality, Angela Merkel ditched the “core Europe” idea for good, arguing the new EU members shouldn’t be pushed to the periphery again.

Not Just a Market

This is all history of course. But there is one person who has studied it well: Emmanuel Macron. Before entering the Élysée, he had his shot at a Humboldt speech in January 2017, outlining his vision for Europe. Citing the Schäuble-Lamers memorandum and Fischer, he apologized that France had not taken up their initiatives and promised to continue their fight.

Macron has certainly kept his word and the overlap between his ideas and those of Schäuble and Lamers is indeed astonishing. Europe’s biggest mistake in the last decade “was to abandon this word: sovereignty,” Macron says. He doesn’t stop exclaiming “Europe is not a big loose market!,” but a political union giving citizens a sense of control in a globalized world.

And as Schäuble did in 1994, Macron believes creating this “sovereign” EU necessitates, first, that enlargement be linked to institutional reform. “Let’s be honest … the system of consensus at 27 doesn’t work. … The ones who want enlargement must also accept more qualified majority voting,” Macron told the press at the London NATO summit in December 2019. And, second, that the EU’s willing members need to move forward on their own, regardless of the others.

Full Circle

That Wolfgang Schäuble, now the president of the German Bundestag, endorsed Macron’s European initiative on December 5 in a speech at … yes, the Humboldt University, is thus nothing but consequential.

Schäuble said Macron’s “Europe that protects” slogan is the right formula. The EU needs to reimpose the primacy of politics in a globalized world. And in a sideswipe against Merkel, he added, “The French president is impatient—who could not forgive him? It is the result of too much waiting—for our answer, German ideas, and common leadership.”

Schäuble citing Macron who cites Schäuble relaunched his “core Europe” idea, arguing that “we cannot afford that the most hesitant, the slowest EU member determines the tempo.” Schäuble called for a “Google tax,” the protection of Europe’s data from the United States and China, the investment of Germany’s trade surplus in climate change measures abroad, more qualified majority voting in European foreign policy, and—chiefly—for Berlin to get serious about EU defense.

The security focus is not only a reaction to NATO’s “problems,” as Schäuble, a committed transatlanticist, put it in his speech. Instead, he sees security as “the inner core of sovereignty,” adding that “knowing about one’s own sovereignty is key to defining a people’s relationship to itself and each other.” Therefore, Schäuble argues that developing Europe’s “capacity to defend itself is an essential factor for the stabilization of an EU identity.”

Schäuble Support

In Schäuble’s thinking, the project of an EU army could bring Europe’s east and west together. And like Macron, Schäuble pleaded for reconsidering the EU’s relationship with Russia, while acknowledging that Germany’s commitment to Nord Stream 2 puts it in a bad position to reassure eastern Europeans.

All of this is strong stuff in Germany, and not yet wildly discussed. But as the Bundestag president says, the country needs this “unpopular debate.” Schäuble can certainly count on Paris not to let go.

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Artwork © Claude Cadi

Emmanuel Macron is a trained philosopher. In a country, in which appearing cultured is the status currency, he never misses a chance to spice up his speeches with some thoughts from the wise and often dead.

Among Macron’s favorites is the enlightenment thinker Immanuel Kant. The man from Kaliningrad famously argued that lying was never justified, as it undermines your interlocutors’ dignity and prevents them from taking rational decisions. This is Macron’s standard line of defense for the rhetorical bombs he likes to throw every now and then.

Arguing the 35-hour workweek is a mistake, qualifying the demographics of the African continent as a “bombshell,” or declaring NATO “brain dead” in an interview with The Economist, Macron likes to provoke public outcries at home and abroad and justifies himself in always the same way: “I am being honest with the French,” “I am saying the things as they are,” or “It is no sign of contempt to tell the truth.”

Battle of Ideas

But eager beaver Macron is certainly not only sharing his thoughts on NATO’s health condition out of a Kantian ideal and to enable his EU partners to take fully-informed decisions. He also believes speaking the “truth”—and doing it publicly—yields political spoils.

This is where another philosopher Macron likes to quote comes in. Antonio Gramsci reasoned that ideological victory precedes political victory. To persistently tell the “truth” and force society to think in your terms is thus the real revolutionary act, the Marxist argued.

For Gramsci, who is also en vogue with today’s right-wing populists, “Ideas and opinions are not spontaneously born in each individual brain: they have had a center of formation, or irradiation, of dissemination, of persuasion—a group of men, or even a single individual, which has developed and presented them in the political form of current reality.”

The French President certainly sees himself as this Gramscian hero. The “brain dead” statement in conjunction with his calls for Europe to relearn “the grammar of sovereignty” and “rearm mentally,” served as a “wake-up call” Macron said in a press conference with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg. In the Economist interview, Macron also questioned whether Article 5 of the NATO treaty, which commits members of the alliance to collective defense, was still valid.

Trump Support

If the goal was, first, to make it impossible for him to be ignored, second, to force Europe to debate his ideas of a “sovereign EU” and partnership with Russia, which, third,  should help disseminate his views and, fourth, pave the way for policy change down the line, Macron can certainly declare “mission accomplished” on the first two counts.

Politicos in the Twittersphere have been all over the “brain dead” comments. Other EU leaders reacted fiercely and even the normally calm Chancellor Angela Merkel has shown her frustration.

And indeed, saying that NATO is “alive and kicking” with a straight-face has become somewhat of a challenge. One tweet by U.S. President Donald Trump telling off Macron would have sufficed to scotch the debate for good. But Trump has remained silent so far and prefers to continue poking at Germany.

Even worse, three days after the Economist interview, Macron boasted on Twitter about the “many convergences” and the “excellent phone conversation with Donald Trump on Syria, Iran and NATO.” The two also agreed to meet ahead of the NATO summit in London on December 4. Paris is keen to point out that Trump, who described NATO as “obsolete” before he took office (he later withdrew the comment), is on the same page as Macron.

Limits of Truth

Still Macron’s gamble poses problems and many in the Paris administration feel uncomfortable with his grand strategizing.

First, telling “the truth” can do damage. If a murderer rings at your door and asks where your friend is who he wants to kill, should you lie? Kant argued No, taking his position to its (absurd) extreme. But by questioning NATO’s Article 5 and reaching out to Russia, the EU’s eastern members feel Macron is doing just that.

Second, changing the way Europeans think about security and Russia will—if at all possible—take time. Indeed, an overlooked element in Macron’s interview is that he sketches out a five to ten-year horizon: “Things won’t happen overnight. But once again, I am opening a track that I don’t think will yield results in 18 or 24 months. … If I don’t take this path, it will never open up.”

Lastly, by claiming to speak in the name of “truth,” Macron implicitly says his adversaries are at best stupid or at worst liars. Macron’s interventions spur debates, a precondition for bringing Europeans closer, according to Jürgen Habermas, another of Macron’s favorite philosophers. But his bulldozer mentality and refusal to listen to others also creates bad blood. The Yellow Vests taking to the streets and the European Parliament rejecting Sylvie Goulard’s candidature for the EU Commission certainly had one thing in common: frustration with Macron’s self-righteous attitude and stubbornness.

No End in Sight

Nevertheless, Macron believes that France has more to lose than others if a real debate over his “sovereign Europe” dream keeps being suffocated. He thus continues to double down, following the motto of Facebook-founder Mark Zuckerberg’s “move fast and break things.”

In the press conference with Stoltenberg, Macron said “Is our enemy today Russia? Or China? … I don’t believe so,” and suggested NATO should essentially be reduced to an anti-terror alliance. He also demanded more help from allies in the Sahel adding in a grave tone: “If some want to see what they call cost-sharing, they can come to the ceremony on Monday that France organizes (for the 13 soldiers killed in a helicopter collision in Mali).”

Attempts to out-maneuver Macron, for example by setting up an “expert group” to study NATO strategy, as German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas proposed, don’t seem to work. If Berlin wants to calm spirits and regain some control over the new debate on European security,  including enlargement, Germany must find an understanding with Macron. 

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© REUTERS/Olivier Matthys/Pool

Since the summer, Emmanuel Macron has made a sudden reappearance on the front lines of international politics. In August, he invited Vladimir Putin to Fort de Brégançon, the French presidential retreat, where the two leaders discussed the conflict in Ukraine and the possibility of Russia’s readmission to the G7 economic summit. Later that month, as G7 host, Macron welcomed leaders of the world’s largest industrial nations, but also brought along a surprise guest, Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif.

At the United Nations in September, the French president called on his fellow world leaders to show “the courage of responsibility.” This prompts the question: is Macron is speaking here on behalf of France or of the European Union as a whole, and can the two positions be reconciled?

A Sense of Urgency

Political observers in the French capital agree on this: Europe’s security architecture is under threat to a degree not seen in three or even four decades. In Macron’s own words: “The international order is being disrupted in an unprecedented way…for the first time in our history, in almost all areas and on a historic scale. Above all, there is a transformation, a geopolitical and strategic reconfiguration.” The French president was referring to the challenge to multilateralism from great powers like the United States and China, but also to intensifying armed conflicts close to Europe’s frontiers. Yet another worry for Macron is the distance the Trump administration has taken from questions of European security.

Macron believes the world now emerging will have a bipolar structure, with the United States on one side and China on the other. All other states will play a subordinate role; this includes Russia, which faces marginalization within this new bipolar order. For Europe, the outlook is little better: “We will have to choose between the two dominant powers,” he told the conference of French ambassadors in August. In other words, the choice open to a future Europe will be whom to serve as junior partner.

But Macron would not be Macron if he gave up in the face of adversity. Having made his bleak assessment, he concluded by demanding that Europe turn itself into an autonomous international actor. As outlined in his famous 2017 Sorbonne speech, Macron wants to see the construction of a sovereign Europe. This Europe would be able to live according to its own values (by no means identical to American values), safeguard its own political and economic interests, and, not least, defend itself militarily. For Macron, this is a matter of urgency.

A Common Front with Russia

France’s desire to improve relations with Russia should be seen against this backdrop. Macron is well aware of Moscow’s hostile stance toward the EU, but he continues to push for constructive cooperation in the relatively near future, for example on arms control and in space. The aim is to prevent Russia from further destabilizing the EU and its surrounding regions. Macron also has another goal in mind: he ultimately sees Russia as a possible ally for Europe in the emerging bipolar world system.

At the conference of ambassadors, Macron was explicit: “To rebuild a real European project in a world that is at risk of bipolarization, [we must] succeed at forming a common front between the EU and Russia.” The statement provoked anger, and not only among EU member states in Eastern Europe, where many fear that closer ties to Moscow inevitably spell danger. There is also a distinct air of skepticism among French political and diplomatic elites. Macron is well aware of this, hence his insistence that French ambassadors adopt a new and different mentality.

This is Macron’s vision of the future. But present-day realities look somewhat different. For a number of years, Islamist terror attacks have been a pressing, immediate danger to France. It is clear that the French government can only win out in the battle against terrorism through cooperation with partners and allies. The same goes for overseas military operations, where France rapidly comes up against the limits of its own power.

This explains French pragmatism on the question of allies. “We need to find support everywhere we can,” Defense Minister Florence Parly told a conference at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington in 2017. In this respect, the US remains indispensable to France. Particularly in the Sahel region of West Africa, France relies on Washington for logistical support and intelligence sharing. Considerable flexibility is needed to combine that sort of dependency with France’s aspirations to autonomy. All the more so when dealing with an unpredictable interlocutor like Donald Trump.

Disappointed with Berlin

Macron’s new foreign policy may seek to invoke the independent French position of previous presidents Charles de Gaulle and Jacques Chirac. However, the current president has added a new element to traditional Fifth Republic foreign policy. No president prior to Macron has ever made such a clear push for European integration, including foreign and security policy. This has particular relevance to the question of autonomy, something Macron desires both for France and for Europe. French policy elites still regard the EU as a force multiplier, useful for a country now without the capacities to match its ambition, despite its nuclear weapons and its permanent UN Security Council seat. But France also regards the EU as a community of interests that must present a united front in an increasingly turbulent world. For this reason, goes the argument, the EU must develop its capacities to operate autonomously in the long term, if necessary without its traditional American partner.

Immediately after his election, Macron attempted to achieve this through close cooperation on fiscal and monetary policy with Germany. However, it rapidly became clear that Berlin had no intention of supporting his ambitious projects for the eurozone. For Paris, this German reluctance increased the importance of another aspect of bilateral relations: defense and arms industry cooperation. The Aachen Treaty, signed by the two countries in January 2019, committed them to “continue to intensify the cooperation between their armed forces with a view to the establishment of a common culture and joint deployments.”

Paris has now distinctly lowered its expectations of a grand alliance with Berlin. In any case, an arrangement like that can only be a project for the very long term. One recent move can been seen as a small first step. The Franco-German agreement at the countries’ most recent bilateral talks in Toulouse makes important changes to arms export regulation. Crucially, Germany will no longer claim the right to block exports of jointly-manufactured weapons systems if German components make up less than 20 percent of the arms in question.

In practice, however, Franco-German cooperation continues to occupy precarious political ground, not least because of stark differences in foreign policy traditions. This is why Paris has sought British participation in European security policy instruments, including the recently established European Intervention Initiative, a 13-nation military project outside both the EU and NATO. Brexit or no Brexit, the United Kingdom and France share a particular strategic outlook, as well as a long tradition of overseas military intervention. In this context, Britain will remain an important partner for France.

A Change of Strategy

Growing frustrations, above all the disappointment with Berlin, led Macron to change his European strategy ahead of May’s European elections. First, Paris now no longer shied away from confrontation with Berlin. Second, the French government intensified its involvement in EU institutional politics and wants to use this more strongly as leverage. Macron supported the formation of Renew Europe, a new liberal grouping in the European parliament, in which French parliamentarians are the biggest delegation (21 out of 74).

Macron also robustly intervened in the struggle over key EU leadership posts. He actively opposed the so-called Spitzenkandidat (“lead candidate”) system, by which the winning party in European parliamentary elections could claim the presidency of the European Commission. Instead, Macron backed Ursula von der Leyen for president. He was gratified that her Europe Agenda 2019–2024 borrowed key ideas from his Sorbonne speech, including ambitious climate goals, a European minimum wage, and the creation of an EU defense union. The French president also pushed for the appointment of Charles Michel as European Council president and Josep Borrell as the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. In Paris, both men are regarded as close to French positions.

Macron’s final tactical maneuver would have seen Sylvie Goulard appointed as a commissioner in charge of a beefed-up portfolio including internal market affairs, as well as industry, aerospace, digitization and culture. Goulard would have overseen the implementation of Macron’s preferred EU projects. But the European parliament rejected Goulard’s nomination, a severe blow to Macron.

In picking Thierry Breton, a businessman and one-time French Minister for Economy, Finance and Industry, as a substitute for Goulard, Macron signaled that knowledge of Germany and therefore the ability to explain his project to the Germans (which Goulard had) was no longer a requirement for the job. The top priority is now to maintain the portfolio that Paris had negotiated and which is in line with its European agenda. A top-level partnership between Goulard and von der Leyen could have been a dynamic driving force for Franco-German cooperation at the EU level. This is now a more difficult proposition, particularly since von der Leyen’s own position has turned out to be more fragile than expected, while the European Parliament seems set to remain riven by political tensions.

Difficult Road to Europeanization

In Paris, the unexpected obstacles in Brussels have been the cause of even more frustration. This French impatience is prompted by the general sense of urgency, along with the country’s aspirations to leadership. In response, the Macron administration has sought room for maneuver elsewhere, going beyond EU frameworks and other traditional diplomatic formats.

The recent rapprochement with Russia is a case in point. Paris will do what it regards as right for both itself and the EU, although where interests actually overlap is a matter for debate. France also hopes its actions will persuade other partners to get on board: French foreign policy is meant to be inclusive. The talks with Putin, for example, were regarded in Paris as a first step, to be followed by the continuation of the “Normandy format” Ukrainian peace talks, which also involved Germany and Ukraine. However, such solo activism may run the risk of offending France’s EU partners, fomenting unnecessary trouble.

One example of this was France’s recent veto of Albania’s and North Macedonia’s application to join the EU, in what would have been a further expansion, this time into south-eastern Europe. Macron’s arguments on the subject are actually entirely legitimate. He is quite right to suggest that the EU’s accession process is problematic: the prospective new members gave inadequate assurances on the rule of law, where improvements are clearly required. Moreover, it is doubtful whether the EU, already embroiled in a painful Brexit saga, would be prepared to admit new members before it has reformed its own institutions and internal processes.

Macron’s veto was meant to signal that expansion would endanger integration, risking the EU’s cohesion and unity. Here, he continued a long-standing tradition in France’s European policy that regards deepening and enlargement as mutually contradictory. Opponents of Macron’s position argue that the EU’s borders should be stabilized, demanding a more pragmatic approach. The French president understands this objection. However, he has maintained his veto, which has come at a high price. The issue has seen him isolated, and has weakened his pro-European credibility.

Be Patient, Be Polite

For all his pro-European convictions, Macron has no intention of silencing France’s voice on the world stage. Like all French politicians, he is not prepared to hand over the country’s permanent UN Security Council seat to an EU representative. At best, Macron may coordinate policy with other European members of the Security Council, thus fulfilling the Aachen Treaty’s stipulation that France and Germany should act “in accordance with the positions and interests of the European Union.”

Given this logic, it is unsurprising that Macron welcomed Borrell’s appointment as High Representative. Borrell is familiar with France’s strategic culture, but also with the sensitivities of member states that are jealous of their prerogatives, the result of many years serving as Spanish foreign minister. He realizes it would be an error to seek the limelight. Of course, he will set the tone for his own department, but his main focus will be on internal coordination processes. All foreign affairs issues will probably be discussed in the Council of Ministers, where larger states tend to have greater visibility. Nonetheless, the EU needs unity in order, for example, to impose economic sanctions as a foreign policy instrument. The voices of the larger states only dominate if the entire EU goes along with them and implements their decisions. This interplay of forces will determine what happens.

For Macron this means that he must constantly strike a balance between national self-assertion and integration within EU structures. If he wants to exert influence within the EU, he cannot go it alone. That’s no easy task for a man of Macron’s impatience. Here, he runs a twofold risk: first, he may offend his partners and come across as arrogant, especially to smaller EU states, who feel he patronizes them. The second risk is that Macron will lose credibility if his well-publicized plans end up going nowhere. In both cases, it is a question of reliability and trust, a basic requirement if the project of European autonomy is to gain sustainable momentum.

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