© 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.

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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.

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© REUTERS/Charles Platiau/Pool

When it comes to Europe’s Russia policy, most of the impetus seems to be coming from Paris these days. For six months now, French President Emmanuel Macron has been setting the agenda. In August he invited Vladimir Putin to a bilateral meeting at Fort Brégançon ahead of the G7 summit, followed by an exchange at ministerial level between Paris and Moscow. Meanwhile, the most recent meeting of the Normandy Format—which brings together France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine to discuss the ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine—took place in Paris in December 2019. And November 2020 marks the 30th anniversary of the Charter of Paris for a New Europe—an occasion that Macron would like to use for talks about a new European security architecture. Paris, Paris, Paris: France is in the fast lane to Moscow.

This is a new and unfamiliar situation for Germany. Since the beginning of the Ukraine conflict six years ago, it was Berlin that defined Europe’s position towards Russia and ensured cohesion and a hard-won consensus in the EU. However, France is now attempting to redefine this consensus and by doing so is overtaking Germany, or so it seems. Is it time for Berlin to modify its policy towards Russia? Has Germany perhaps held on to its previous “post-2014” approach to Moscow for too long?

Traditionally, Germany has always been the driving force in Europe’s relations with Russia. The German-Russian special relationship flourished after reunification and the end of the Cold War. The early 2000s, after Putin’s election and when Gerhard Schröder was still chancellor, is regarded by some as the “golden age” in relations between Berlin and Moscow. However, this closeness has often given rise to mistrust, especially among Central and Eastern Europeans: during this period, Germany was happy to leave it up to the EU to criticize Russia.

In French politics, on the other hand, Russia only really played a role at times when France remembered at its own great power ambitions. This was the case during the 2008 war in Georgia, when then President Nicolas Sarkozy—on behalf of the Europeans, but on a French mission—negotiated the ceasefire between Tbilisi and Moscow. In the Ukraine conflict, France left the leadership to Germany: President François Hollande was neither striving for proximity to Russia nor looking to project French power. Macron is now returning to the same pattern as Sarkozy. And in doing so, he is following the assertion of Charles de Gaulle: “France cannot be France without grandeur.” This includes a positive relationship with the other great power on the continent: Russia.

A German Lack of Direction

Up until the Ukraine conflict, German policy towards Russia was guided by three principles: reconciliation, integration, and rapprochement. Basically, it was a variation on the Ostpolitik theme: from “change through trade” to “rapprochement through interdependence” and “partnership for modernization.” The longer Berlin adhered to this approach, the louder the accusations of German naivety towards Russia became. The annexation of Crimea and the covert war in eastern Ukraine marked a turning point, leading to a short and medium-term reorientation: Russia policy now consisted primarily of “holding the line” and defending common European positions: extending sanctions, implementing the Minsk agreements, and preventing a sell-out of Ukraine—especially in the form of a “grand bargain” between Trump and Putin.

There was a path dependency to Germany’s Russia policy before 2014 remained. Which is why, despite all the political and economic doubts, Berlin stuck with the construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. From the perspective of its supporters, it was important not to sacrifice the last pillar of the German-Russian special relationship: after all, the gas business with the Soviet Union had functioned reliably even at the height of the Cold War. That is why it is still considered a stabilizing factor in East-West relations today. For critics, Nord Stream 2 is the pivotal issue that could demonstrate a serious change in German policy towards Russia. There is no doubt that Berlin has massively underestimated the political consequences of continuing with the construction: Merkel’s argument that a Russian gas molecule remains a Russian gas molecule, regardless of whether it arrives via Ukraine or the Baltic Sea, has not convinced the US Senate. The pipeline will now probably have to be completed by Russia on its own.

German policy towards Russia thus currently consists of little more than sanctions on the one hand and a commitment to Nord Stream 2 on the other, coupled with an effort to maintain political dialogue, which often leads to frustration—whether in the Petersburg Dialogue or the High Working Group on Security Policy at the level of senior ministry officials. Moreover, the contrasting approaches from the period before and after 2014 make this policy very difficult for European neighbors to understand. In short: Berlin is treading water in its Russia policy. What is missing is a long-term strategy.

An Emotional Relationship

Russia is only 13th (based on total revenues in 2018) on the list of Germany’s most important trading partners, and under the current conditions, there is little potential for growth. It is therefore unclear on what basis German-Russian relations will develop over the next ten to 15 years. At the same time, a kind of “Russia fatigue” has started to take hold in Berlin. For example, the German EU Council Presidency, which starts in July, is setting very different priorities with an EU-China Summit and an EU-Africa Summit. Even a summit on the Eastern Partnership did not make it onto the German agenda, but will take place in Brussels in June instead.

It seems that Germany’s hopes for a positive change in relations with Russia have been dashed. It is the end of a strategic partnership; at the same time, German policymakers are reluctant to see Russia as a strategic adversary, as some other European member states are advocating. Such an approach would be difficult to communicate to the German public. For them, the relationship with Russia is an emotional one. According to a survey conducted by Körber-Stiftung, Germans are consistently in favor of more cooperation with Russia. Moreover, the concept of “decoupling” or “disentanglement” is not popular in German foreign policy, which is based on the principles of multilateral cooperation and collaboration. And Russia is now indispensable in many international policy fields.

Meanwhile, Macron is hoping for cooperation: he wants to form a common front with Russia in order to survive in a new world order marked by US-China rivalry. According to Macron, Europe will not be able to assert itself as a great power if it cannot get along with its biggest neighbor on the continent. The German approach is much more pragmatic: dialogue with Russia—especially in international crises such as Libya, Syria or Iran—is still urgently needed. A geopolitical “alignment” with Russia à la Macron seems, however, absurd. Russia and China each remain challenges in their own right.

Germany, unlike France, cannot take a great power approach to Russia. At the same time, however, Berlin should not leave Russia policy entirely to Macron, but should identify areas in which it can actively advance the Russia policy agenda together with France.

The five Russia principles that the former EU High Representative Federica Mogherini set out in March 2016—the implementation of the Minsk agreements, the strengthening of relations with Russia’s neighbors, resilience, selective cooperation, and civil society cooperation with Russia—are still valid, but they need to be reviewed. An exchange with Russia on European security would be in France’s interest— in the full knowledge that when it comes to European security, Russia is part of the problem, for example because of its violation of the INF Treaty, and only to a limited extent part of the solution.

Putin’s Russia Is Here to Stay

Macron is right to have placed the issue of arms control and strategic stability high on the Franco-Russian “agenda of trust and security” led by diplomat Pierre Vimont. And he is right to argue that European security cannot be decided between the US and Russia and over the heads of Europeans, as happened with the end of the INF Treaty. However, a sense of proportion is required: the Russian offer of a moratorium on the stationing of intermediate-range missiles, which Macron would like to talk about, is a rather unhelpful suggestion if NATO partners believe that such missiles have already been stationed by Russia. Overall, however, Germany, working together with France, can make a useful contribution to this issue.

Macron has also already announced that he will attend the celebrations of the 75th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in Moscow in May 2020. Such symbolic gestures form an important part of France’s policy towards Russia. Should Chancellor Angela Merkel decide to follow Macron’s example, she will have to walk a fine line between remembrance on the one hand and rejection of Russian historical revisionism on the other. The politicization of history for the purpose of constructing a positive Russian great power idea and rehabilitating Stalin’s leadership reached a new high point in a speech President Putin gave late last year. History policy is thus also a field in which Germany—ideally together with France—should take a clear stance.

Europe’s Russia policy can only be shaped jointly and not by France alone. Germany should help define the framework conditions of the new French initiative on Russia: inclusivity before ambition, unity before great power. Without the support of other Europeans, Macron’s Russia policy will have little chance of success—and the skepticism in Central and Eastern Europe is already significant. Macron’s visit to Warsaw was a first step towards confidence-building, and others must follow. It is only by working together that the EU can exert a constructive influence on Russia and, if necessary, counteract destructive policies.

Realistically, however, one must accept the fact that there is little prospect of any change within Russia. The constitutional amendments now being pushed through in Moscow point to a continuity of the form of rule and of the ruling elites after 2024, the end of Putin’s current term of office. Whether the Russian president chooses the “Kazakh succession model,” whereby he steers the fortunes of the country as the éminence grise in the background, or whether he finds an alternative model—Putin will in all probability not leave the political stage. This makes it all the more important for the EU to review its principles for cooperation with Russia and ensure they are given a long-term orientation. Neither France nor Germany can achieve this alone.

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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/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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Artwork © Claude Cadi

On paper, France and Italy seem like lovers destined for each other. The “sister republics” are each other’s second biggest trading partner, and perhaps more importantly, they have a natural cultural affinity. It doesn’t need an equivalent to the Franco-German TV channel Arte for Italy and France to become their film industries’s respective biggest foreign audiences.

Still, the EU’s two largest Latin countries have rarely formed a power couple. After World War II, France’s political elite did not trust post-fascist Italy and wanted the Italians kept out of NATO. In the 1960s, Charles de Gaulle felt offended when Rome did not follow his lead but rather welcomed American military bases and supported a supranational Europe instead of his vision of a “Europe des États.”

It didn’t help that the French and Italian left cultivated close ties in the 1980s and François Mitterrand gave asylum to members of the terrorist Brigate Rosse. And in 2000s, at the height of the Iraq crisis, Jacques Chirac snubbed then Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, telling him, “One doesn’t export democracy with an armored car.” In France, the one-liner is part of every Chirac Greatest Hits album. But this did not prevent his successor Nicolas Sarkozy from ousting Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011—against Rome’s express protests.

Stand-Off

If recent European history is full of Franco-Italian skirmishes, the recent years under Emmanuel Macron have been no exception. Long before the Five Star Movement and the far-right Lega acceded to power in June 2018, Macron repeated France’s classic mistake of taking Italy’s support for granted or simply not caring about antagonizing Rome.

Once in the Elysée, Macron barred rescue vessels carrying migrants from docking in French ports and decided to maintain checks on the Italian border, which left asylum seekers stranded at Ventimiglia. Macron also did not hesitate to block an Italian takeover of a French ship-building yard and undermine Italy’s long-standing Libya policy.

Rome supports the UN-recognized government in Tripoli. It dominates Libya’s west, which is key to controlling migration across the Mediterranean. Macron’s primary Libyan concern, however, was to secure the Sahel region. This led Paris to throw its weight behind Khalifa Haftar. The general, once an exile in the United States, vowed to go after Islamic terrorists and even seems to have received French arms to that purpose. But Haftar used them to march on Tripoli in the spring of 2019 in an attempt to overthrow the government.

While across the Rhine, the French president is seen as a great European, the Italians discovered Macron’s Gaullist and unilateralist side early on. In Italy, anti-French rhetoric has come to replace anti-German sentiment.

“A Chance to Be Seized”

It is only now that Macron seems to have finally understood that Italy—more than any other country—is the decisive battleground for the EU’s future.

There is of course the economic question. Italy’s 132 percent debt-to-GDP ratio is the bomb that could blow up the currency union—and French companies are Italy’s largest foreign investors. But in a world of ultra-low interest rates, the debt elephant in the room can be ignored for a while.

The real problem is political. The specter of a far-right prime minister taking over in Rome has focused minds in Paris. Lega leader Matteo Salvini would not only have frustrated most of Macron’s plans in Brussels. Perhaps more crucially, the Italian far-right ditching coalition partners and rising to power on its own would have allowed Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National to lose its stigma of unelectability, which is what got Macron into the Elysée in the first place.

That Salvini locked himself out of power this summer is, in this context, seen as a godsend that comes with responsibility. As French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said, “We believe having a new Italian government is a chance, and chances have to be seized”.

The Elysée is keen to make sure the Italians regain confidence in the EU. The French president was the first head of state to pay a visit to Giuseppe Conte’s second government, formed by M5S and Italy’s Social Democrats (PD) in September. Paris is lobbying Brussels to allow Conte some fiscal breathing space. On Libya, Macron has let Berlin take over to try to mediate a solution as Paris has lost its pretense of neutrality.

Paris is also the main force behind a renewed push for a mechanism distributing incoming asylum-seekers across the EU—an old Italian demand. This is not completely without self-interest on Macron’s part. France is recording rising numbers of asylum-seekers. Those rejected by other EU countries come to France hoping for better treatment. Macron realizes that shutting the border with Italy doesn’t solve the problem.

No Time for Renzi

Lastly, Macron has stopped playing  domestic politics in Italy. In parallel to the government of the day in Rome, Macron had entertained a relationship with Matteo Renzi, the former PD leader. Macron even flirted with the idea of allying with Renzi in the European elections. He was a constant factor of insecurity in Italy’s political landscape.

Last month, Renzi exited the PD to found his break-away Italia Viva party. Importantly, Macron chose not to meet Renzi when he jetted to Rome. Italy’s government is notoriously unstable. But the Elysée has no interest in Renzi breaking away from Conte’s second government and provoking snap elections—at least not before Macron faces his own rendezvous with the French electorate in 2022.

Europe is slowly realizing that Conte must be helped if Salvini is to be kept out of power. In this context, a Franco-Italian allaince may finally become a viable force in Brussels.

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The German question seems to be back yet again. With speculation about the end of the Atlantic alliance and the liberal international order, there are renewed fears of German dominance at the heart of Europe.

German power now takes a different form than in the past. While before 1945, the German question was geopolitical, the current German question is geo-economic, as I outlined in my book The Paradox of German Power. But things have changed since it was published in 2015—in particular with the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States. In a recent thought-provoking essay in Foreign Affairs, Robert Kagan suggests that we should now be less certain that Germany will remain “benign” in geopolitical terms. In other words, for Kagan, the old German question is back.

However, this underestimates the deep cultural change in Germany since World War II. It’s hard to imagine any circumstances that would lead to the country reverting to an old-fashioned kind of German nationalism and militarism. The commitment of ordinary Germans to the idea of peace is simply too strong. For better or worse, this is the lesson that Germans have drawn from their experience in the 20th century.

Moreover, focusing on a remilitarization of Germany actually obscures a more likely—and interesting—possibility. If the United States were to actually withdraw its security guarantee to Europe, or if the liberal international order were to completely collapse, Germany might defy the expectations of realist international relations theorists and simply choose to be insecure rather than abandon its identity as a Friedensmacht, or “force for peace.” In other words, even in this worst-case scenario, Germany might in effect do nothing rather than either develop its own military capabilities, including nuclear weapons, or exchange dependence on the US for its security for a new dependence on France.

How Germany Harms the EU

Meanwhile, those, particularly Americans, who warn about the danger of the return of the old German question underestimate how problematic today’s Germany already is in the European context. Germany’s semi-hegemonic position within Europe is one of the main reasons why the EU has struggled to solve the series of crises that began with the euro crisis in 2010. On the one hand, Germany lacks the resources to solve problems in the way a hegemon would. On the other, it is powerful enough that it no longer feels the need to make concessions to other EU member states, and in particular to France. As a result, the EU has become dysfunctional.

It’s important not to idealize post-war Germany as acting selflessly. German politicians certainly look out for German interests in Europe. In fact, since the beginning of the euro crisis, much of the debate about Germany’s role in Europe has centered on exactly this question of the relationship between Germany’s national interest and the wider European interest. From economic policy and the management of the single currency itself to the refugee crisis and the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, Germany has again and again been accused of putting its own national interest ahead of the interests of Europe as a whole.

Nor has Germany exactly rejected nationalism altogether. Although—or perhaps because—Germans rejected militarism, they found new sources of national pride. In particular, a kind of economic nationalism developed in Germany and increasingly focused on Germany’s success as an exporter—what I have called “export nationalism.” During the Obama administration—long before Trump “targeted” Germany, as Kagan puts it, for its huge, persistent current account surplus—the US treasury had already put Germany on a currency-manipulation monitoring list.

Restoring the Franco-German Balance

Today, the dire state of trans-Atlantic relations and the threat of the withdrawal of the US security guarantee have raised concerns about how Germany might respond. Historically, American power has pacified Europe—that is, it “muted old conflicts in Europe and created the conditions for cooperation,” as Josef Joffe wrote in 1984. There are therefore good reasons to worry that a withdrawal of the security guarantee could lead to European disintegration and even the reactivation of security dilemmas. Yet a US withdrawal could also help to resolve the German question in its current, geoeconomic form—without necessarily re-opening the classical, geopolitical German question.

This is because Germany’s semi-hegemonic position in Europe is dependent on the configuration of the US-led liberal international order, and the particular form it took in Europe, that allowed Germany to “free ride.” In particular, the US security guarantee meant that Germany didn’t need France’s military capabilities and therefore had little incentive to make concessions to France on other issues like the euro. Whatever Trump’s intentions, his threat to withdraw the US security guarantee has given France greater leverage over Germany and thus gone some way to restoring what Harvard’s Stanley Hoffman called “the balance of imbalances” between the two countries. If the United States were actually to withdraw its security guarantee, it would further restore this balance and could mean the end of German semi-hegemony.

Power Politics Persists

In particular, increased German dependence on France for security might—and I emphasize might—force Germany to make concessions to France on other issues like economic policy and the euro, which would be good not just for France, but for Europe as a whole. In this way the removal of the US security guarantee could potentially enable Europe to finally deal with the crisis that began in 2010. The crucial question, however, is whether even this dramatic scenario would be enough to force Germany to rethink its approach to economic policy and the euro. It’s also perfectly possible that Germans would still not feel sufficiently threatened to make concessions to France on these issues as a quid pro quo for a more explicit or extensive French commitment to German or European security.

There is a tendency at the moment to view the world in extraordinarily binary terms. But the situation in Europe today is much more complex. While commentators like Kagan worry that a collapse of the current order would lead to a return of power politics within Europe, in reality power politics never really went away, even if it was no longer pursued using military tools. Within the peaceful, institutionalized context of the EU, member states continued to pursue their own national interests. In short, Europe may not have been quite the Kantian paradise that Kagan famously suggested it was in Of Paradise and Power.

Similarly, since the beginning of the euro crisis, it has become apparent that the Atlantic alliance and European integration did not resolve the German question quite as conclusively as was once thought. Given the ongoing reality of power politics within the EU, the unequal distribution of power among member states continued to matter, though that power was largely economic rather than military. After reunification and enlargement increased German power within Europe, a familiar dynamic emerged—though it only really became apparent after the beginning of the euro crisis. In other words, in resolving one version of the German question, the EU and the United States may have simply created another.

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© REUTERS/Pascal Rossignol

Amongst a flurry of election interference attempts in recent years, one case stands out: the 2017 French presidential election—most notably because it failed. The coordinated attempt to undermine Emmanuel Macron’s candidacy involved a disinformation campaign consisting of rumors and fake news, hacking the accounts of his campaign staff, and finally a leak two days before the final round of the presidential election. With the benefit of hindsight, it’s possible not only to examine how the campaign was thwarted but also what lessons can be learned to fight future disinformation campaigns.

The launch of the disinformation campaign against Macron coincided with his rise in the polls in January 2017. As Macron emerged as the front-runner, he became the target of more frequent, organized, and aggressive attacks from the American alt-right, the French far-right and Kremlin-linked accounts. The attempts to discredit him followed common themes, painting him as a globalist, a rich banker, a supporter of Islam and uncontrolled immigration, along with malicious comments about the age difference between him and his wife, and rumors about his sexuality.

Then came the hack. Macron’s campaign staff was targeted with a series of phishing attacks as early as December 2016. Other techniques included tabnabbing or email spoofing. In total, the professional and personal email accounts of at least five of Macron’s close colleagues were hacked. The emails and files obtained reached from March 2009 to April 24, 2017, only two weeks before the second and final round of voting in the presidential election.

The subsequent leaking of the hacked documents came on May 5, just hours before the start of a media blackout ahead of the election on May 7. The timing was deliberate as it prohibited Macron and his team from making any public statements or media appearances to address the leak. It also prevented any coverage or analysis of the documents by the traditional media.

As a result, social media, especially Twitter, became the primary arena for discussion of the leaked content. The documents were initially available on a number of file-sharing websites and first shared on Twitter by the American alt-right, which launched the hashtag #MacronLeaks. WikiLeaks then shared a link to the files. With the help of some of the same bot accounts used prior to the 2016 US presidential election, the hashtag #MacronLeaks appeared in half a million tweets within 24 hours.

No Single Actor

The leaked documents were mostly drawn from the hacked email accounts, but also included two additional folders of computer files. Because nothing incriminating was found in the original files, the hackers altered some of them. The “Macron leaks” therefore fall into the category of “tainted leaks,” where at least some of the documents are manipulated before being released. The fake messages insinuated that Macron used cocaine (“don’t forget to buy c. for the boss”) and was on the mailing list of “Vestiaire Gay,” a gay underwear brand.

Although these different elements seemed coordinated, it is actually unlikely that one single actor was behind them. Attributing the disinformation campaign is the easiest part as it was conducted overtly, mostly by the Russian state media and the American alt-right.

However, it is much more difficult to determine responsibility for the hack itself, which resulted in the theft of gigabytes of data. France has never officially pointed a finger. Many cybersecurity firms and researchers, however, identified it as a Russian intelligence operation, most probably executed by APT28, a Russian cyber espionage group often associated with the military intelligence agency GRU.

Meanwhile, the #MacronGate hashtag can be linked to an American neo-Nazi named Andrew Auernheimer. Meanwhile, William Craddick, founder of Disobedient Media and notorious for his contribution to the Pizzagate conspiracy theory that targeted the US Democratic Party during the 2016 American presidential campaign, seems to be the 4chan poster of the leaks. Thus, the most plausible scenario is a combination of Russian intelligence and American alt-right activity; however, it’s not clear to what extent they actually collaborated or if they simply worked in parallel toward the same goal.

Why It Failed

The failure of the “Macron Leaks” was due to a combination of factors. For a start, France’ political and media environment is less vulnerable than that of other countries.

First, the length of the French presidential campaign is regulated, and the election has two rounds, so it’s not always possible to predict which candidates will be in the second round. The election media environment is also more regulated in France than in the US. Paid political advertising is forbidden, while official political ads of equal duration are aired for free on national TV and radio stations during the official campaign period. The airtime allocated to politicians in broadcast media is also regulated.

The law requires media that publish opinion polls to explain how they were conducted. Publication of or commentary on any pre-election opinion poll is banned as part of a media blackout starting at midnight the day before the election until the polls close.

Second, in 2017, the French media environment was relatively robust. The Internet penetration rate was lower in France than in the US, Germany, Canada, or the United Kingdom, and social media penetration was particularly low. Furthermore, the French voters didn’t trust social networks as news source and tended to share better quality information than US voters. It must be said, however, that what was true in 2017 may no longer be true, as the yellow vests movement both revealed and boosted the growing role of “alternative” and conspiratorial media in France.

Third, the 2015 TV5Monde cyberattack had served as a wake-up call for most of the French media. And online jihadist propaganda, especially after France suffered regular terrorist attacks on its soil, contributed toward a distrust of digital platforms.

Not French Enough

There was also an element of luck involved. The attackers were poorly prepared, largely because they hadn’t anticipated Macron being in the second round. Not only was there not enough time to find dirt on him, but his relative youth meant made him unlikely to have many dark secrets or scandals to hide.

The fact that no incriminating or suspicious information was revealed even with the leak of over 21,000 emails turned to Macron’s advantage. It was in stark contrast to his rival Marine Le Pen, who was facing legal problems without being subject to anywhere near the level of transparency that the leaks brought to Macron’s campaign. Furthermore, the forged emails were so absurd that they threatened to discredit the entire leak.

Another factor was a lack of cultural understanding. Firstly, the attackers tried to spread the rumor that Macron was gay, ignoring that such a revelation was hardly scandalous in France, where the private lives of political leaders are much less of a concern than in the US. Additionally, the operation likely suffered from its overwhelmingly Anglophone nature. This reduced the capacity to spread disinformation to most French voters and may have provoked anti-American sentiments and resentment amongst a nationalist segment of the electorate, which might have been more receptive to such messaging if it had been in French.

Don’t Copy Obama

Learning the lessons of the failure of the “Macron Leaks” may help in the battle against similar disinformation campaigns. For one thing, France benefited from knowing about previous election cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns, most notably the 2016 US presidential campaign. The French authorities were alert to the threat and cooperated with US authorities to learn from their experience.

The Obama administration did not intervene even when it became obvious that a campaign of disinformation and cyberattacks was being conducted because it was afraid of appearing partisan (and because it was confident that Clinton would win anyway). The French example demonstrates that administrative, independent, and non-political authorities can work together to provide expertise aimed at guaranteeing the integrity of the election process. Agencies like the National Cybersecurity Agency (ANSSI) and the National Commission for the Control of the Electoral Campaign for the Presidential Election (CNCCEP) played a key role in alerting political parties to the risk of cyberattacks, and providing tools to monitor and detect suspicious activity.

There was also an important effort from journalists to counter the disinformation campaign through fact-checking initiatives. The French government sought to show resolve throughout the presidential campaign, both publicly and through diplomatic channels, insisting that France would not tolerate any foreign interference in its elections, and that it was willing to respond strongly to any such interference.

Be Vigilant

In terms of technical precautions, the French government announced the end of electronic voting for citizens abroad because of the “extremely high risk” of cyberattacks. Meanwhile, Facebook suspended nearly 70,000 fake accounts in France, responding to public and state pressure.

There was also a concerted effort by Macron’s political movement En Marche! to communicate openly about its susceptibility to hacking and about the hack when it occurred. This transparency helped raise public awareness of the issue, but it also kept Macron’s campaign team on high alert. One reason there was nothing scandalous in the leaks was the team’s vigilance: confidential information was shared on encrypted apps, and any sensitive information was discussed face-to-face, with email reserved for trivial and logistical matters.

Furthermore, the Macron campaign team created false email accounts and documents in anticipation of a hack, helping to damage the leak’s credibility. Macron’s campaign staff remained focused on promoting his political platform, but it also responded quickly to posts and comments that spread disinformation online, in certain situations using humor and irony. Since the leaked documents didn’t reveal anything illegal or even particularly interesting, they only improved Macron’s image as a “clean” and scandal-free candidate.

The legal system was also vigilant. The public prosecutor’s office in Paris opened an investigation into the leaks within hours of their release.

Meanwhile, Macron’s team denied accreditation to RT and Sputnik during the final stages of the campaign. This decision was justified on the basis that they were propaganda outlets and not legitimate media outlets. The rest of the media acted responsibly, they cooperated when the CNCCEP called for the media to refrain from covering the leaks and the disinformation disseminated on social media.

Push Your Own Story

There were also international efforts to quickly analyze and publicize what was happening. Within hours of the initial dump, several analyses, for example from the UK’s Ben Nimmo, helped steer the international media conversation. As a result, the main story wasn’t about the content of the leaks, but about the implication of the American alt-right in some kind of influence operation against the French election. Thus a handful of open-source researchers helped to derail the attackers’ narrative.

The main lesson here, according to Nimmo, is that this is less about information warfare than “narrative warfare.” In Nimmo words, “we have the facts,” but “they have the stories.” To counteract this, it’s important to push other stories and deconstruct theirs.

Furthermore, it’s vital to encourage and develop international civil society initiatives that scan the web on a permanent basis—and not just during election periods—searching for trolls, bots, and disinformation actors, and exposing their identities, methods, and networks.

The Next Campaign Will Be Worse

Despite its success fending off the “Macron Leaks,” France should not rest on its laurels.

First, information manipulation is a daily threat, not one that reemerges every two years or so. The measures taken should certainly not be limited to electoral periods. Recent examples of disinformation campaigns associated with the yellow vests movement are useful reminders that France’s adversaries will use any opportunity, anytime, to divide and spread doubt, confusion and conspiracies.

Second, Macron was facing Le Pen, someone most voters are still not prepared to support. He consistently polled at 20 to 25 percentage points higher than she did, and he logically won by a huge margin. But the French political landscape may evolve. In the 2022 election, if Macron faces a more socially acceptable far-right candidate, the margin could be much smaller, which could make such an operation decisive.

Third, the threat will only grow. France’s adversaries will learn from their mistakes. They will adapt, improve, and professionalize their techniques, tailor their approach, and find new methods and targets. With technological developments and the rise of Artificial intelligence, manipulations will become more sophisticated. Improvements in voice and video editing will make detecting misinformation all but impossible, eroding public trust. It is important to be aware of all these challenges and prepare accordingly.

* This article is based on the report The Macron Leaks Operation: A Post-Mortem (Atlantic Council/IRSEM).

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© REUTERS/Vincent Kessler

The Front National is history. France’s nationalist party now calls itself Le Rassemblement National (RN). It no longer identifies as right-wing or far right. Its long-standing leader, Marine Le Pen, says it is time for “pragmatism,” not ideology.

This is marketing, of course. But behind the rebranding, there lies one substantive policy change. In her 2017 French presidential campaign that she lost against Emmanuel Macron, Le Pen’s key promise was to hold a referendum on France’s membership of the European Union. Today, the 50-year-old has dropped the idea of leaving the organization she has made a habit of blaming for “almost all of our ills.”

She has done so for two reasons. First, selling the idea of a triumphant exit from the EU with a straight face has become impossible, as voters witness the chaos on the other side of the English Channel. Second, leaving the eurozone actually frightens the French who—like the Germans—are avid savers. A new national currency would devalue, effectively slashing the Frenchman’s life savings. As the Yellow Vest protests sparked by a fuel tax hike show, the country is in no mood for economic pain. Hervé Juvin, the RN’s new intellectual-in-chief and ecological poster boy, makes no bones about calling a unilateral EU or euro exit “irresponsible.”

Le Pen’s Cul-de-Sac

Frexit had thus become a dead-end for Le Pen. The clarion call helped rallying the troops, but made it impossible for her to win an overall majority in presidential elections.

The nationalist tide in Vienna and Rome gave her an elegant way out of this cul-de-sac. This January, Le Pen abandoned the referendum pledge arguing, “For a long time, we did not have the choice. This EU, either you had to submit or leave… Now there has been an incredible democratic change in Europe.”

Thus the RN hasn’t been framing the European elections exclusively as a referendum on Macron’s record, despite the ire he inspires among the Yellow Vests. Instead, Le Pen argues that the vote is a unique opportunity to change Europe to the liking of her traditional followers.

“We are coming!”—and not “We are leaving!”—was the battling cry of the RN’s campaign kick-off event. On flyers, Le Pen poses with the Italian Interior Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini under the slogan, “Our ideas are winning everywhere in Europe.” When the two met at the sidelines of a G7 interior ministers’ meeting in Paris, Salvini tweeted, “We want to bring some common sense to Europe.”

The hope of becoming a power broker in Brussels has allowed Le Pen to justify her referendum U-turn and further advance her so-called dédiabolisation strategy. Since succeeding her father in 2011, she has tried to give her party a more respectable image.

So far, this has paid off. Five years ago in the European elections, Le Pen’s party won 25 percent of the French vote, four points ahead of the second placed center-right.

But the strategy seems to have reached its limits. Today, polls show the RN is neck to neck with Macron’s La République en Marche and may even have to concede the first place.

Frustrated by the RN’s decision to ditch the idea of Frexit, Florian Philippot, a former FN Vice-President, has founded his own break-away party. François Asselineau, another Frexiter arguing the RN is a fake euroskeptic party financed by the CIA, is popular among the Yellow Vests. Meanwhile many of the more Gaullist euroskeptics are switching their allegiance to Nicolas Dupont-Aignan and his Débout la France movement.

This has led to growing nervousness at RN headquarters. Anything but a clear-cut victory would be a huge disappointment for the party. European elections have produced the best results in the past, as centrist parties failed to mobilize their voters. But when she presented the European campaign program at the end of April, Le Pen visibly struggled to smile at the cameras.

Reversal of Roles

A poor result would weaken Le Pen not only nationally. It would also reduce her influence in the coalition of populist far right parties Salvini wants to build on the European level. His Lega is set to gain more than 30 percent of the vote in Italy, which would see the former regional party overtake the RN in terms of seats in the European Parliament.

This would be hard for Le Pen to digest. But her advertised intimacy with Salvini already masks the RN’s growing isolation in Europe. In Spain and Germany, VOX and the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) are projected to register gains, compared to 2015; like Salvini’s Lega und Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party in Hungary (presently suspended from the center-right European People’s Party) they share little of the RN’s free-market critique. Similar, the far right in Austria, Finland, the Netherlands, or Sweden doesn’t thrive on deficit-spending and protectionism. Poland’s Jaroslaw Kacyńsky and his governing Law and Justice party (PiS) have in the past always distanced himself from the RN.

As Jean-Yves Camus, a long-standing observer of the French far right, notes, “The solidity of the alliance between Salvini and Le Pen depends on Kacyńsky and Orbán.” Should the two Eastern Europeans join the Lega’s new European coalition, Salvini might thus have to sideline the RN. Even in a more nationalistic Europe, Le Pen is unlikely to feel at home.

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© REUTERS/Benoit Tessier

On the streets of Paris and cities across France over the holidays, it seemed that the country’s yellow vest movement had lost steam—until another eruption of violent protests on January 5. It is already clear, however, that the protests have left lasting scars on President Emmanuel Macron’s image, at home and abroad. That looks set to have a significant impact the 2019 European elections.

What started as a protest against a planned increase in fuel and diesel taxes—Macron has since cancelled those plans—turned into a revolt against the political elite, the distribution of wealth, and government policy. It was sparked in large part by people in rural areas who need their car to go to work. For them, the additional fuel tax would have made it even harder to make ends meet. They are among a growing group of French people who feel politicians in the capital have forgotten their needs.

Their anger has put Macron in a difficult position, grasping for answers to the most severe crisis he has had to face in office. Stéphane Wahnich, head of the Paris-based survey institute SCP communication, thinks Macron’s ways and style of communication will now have to change, and quickly.

“The French like their president to be a monarch—on condition that he doesn’t look down on them,” he said. “Macron will have to become a more classical president like the center-right Jacques Chirac, smoother and less populist. The times of his controversial comments are finished.”

Wahnich calls this a second term within the presidential term and predicts a reversal of Macron’s policies. “He will be obliged to implement more socially acceptable policies that are in favor of the poor,” he estimated.

A New Playbook

That will be necessary if Macron wants to right the ship. Since the beginning of the crisis in November 2018, the president’s popularity—already low—has plummeted. Only between 20 and 30 percent of the French have a positive opinion of him, according to a survey done by polling institute Ipsos on behalf of the magazine Le Point in late December; that’s compared to around 60 percent at the beginning of his term.

Meanwhile, Macron made significant concessions to the yellow vest protestors in a televised address, cancelling the planned taxes and announcing measures to boost workers’ income. However, right after his speech, more than 50 percent of those polled said they supported the demonstrators. More recent polls are showing that at least 60 percent of the French are still supporting the protesters.

“He waited until two seconds before the crash to take action. The fact that all this violence had to happen for him to respond is very damaging for his image,” said Bruno Cautrès from the Center for Political Research at Sciences Po University in Paris. He believes Macron won’t be able to regain his lost popularity.

The president has indeed come across as patronizing to many. He once told an unemployed person that it was easy to find a job—he just had to cross the street. And he called the French “Gauls who are resistant to change” and “lazy.”

Macron’s recent efforts to change his image and his policies probably won’t be enough to help him score high in European elections scheduled for May. A poll by IFOP on behalf of the newspaper L’Opinion shows that Macron’s party La République En Marche has lost ground since the protests began. Meanwhile, Marine Le Pen and her far-right Rassemblement National—formerly known as Front National—and the far-left Nouveau Parti anticapitaliste (NDA) have climbed in the polls.

“Macron has lost large parts of his aura,” said Philippe Marlière , a professor for French and European Politics at University College London. “He used to be seen as a modern, dynamic president who could reform France while having a balanced approach of left- and right-wing policies. But more and more, people realize that he’s less balanced than they thought and they doubt his ability to bring about change—in France and within the European Union.”

Running Out of Steam?

Macron’s EU reform plans could now indeed become even more difficult to push through. He has been pledging to establish a post for an EU finance minister, a sizable eurozone budget, and a separate eurozone Parliament to oversee economic policy.

But Germany’s Angela Merkel has so far agreed only to a rather small eurozone budget as part of the overall EU budget. And, with Macron’s struggles at home, she may have even more reason to be reluctant. Macron’s main argument had always been that he deserved support for EU reform in exchange for his success in reforming France. That success is now no longer assured. What’s more, Macron’s concessions to the yellow vest protestors are likely to push the French deficit above 3 percent of GDP, the Maastricht fiscal criterion. That sends the wrong signal to European partners, especially Germany.

Looking even further ahead to the next presidential elections in 2022, a rethink seems to be taking place among rival mainstream parties. “Up until now, the center-right Republicans had been on Macron’s side, but over the past few weeks, they have been harshly criticizing him. It looks like they have decided to go it alone and are already gearing up for their own election campaign,“ said political analyst Cautrès. Similar things are happening on the left, although the Socialist Party still needs more clarity on its exact strategy, he added.

Indeed, many analysts in France and Europe seem to largely agree that Macron’s leadership has taken a lasting hit. The president himself, though, seems to believe a relaunch of his presidency is still possible. During his recent announcements, he called the protesters’ anger a “chance” and the current times an “historic moment for the country.” The government has started national debates with protesters, trade unionists, and local politicians in the hope that doing so will help Macron regain his sheen and push through his plans for next year. Indeed, the president confirmed his determination to implement them in his New Year’s speech.

Yet these include reforms to housing benefits, the pension system, and unemployment insurance—benefits that many of the protestors have enjoyed until now. For example, people whose income has increased over the past year could lose state support for their rent. Macron intends to simplify the country’s pension system, aligning private and public pensions but still keeping the retirement age at 62; he also plans to reduce unemployment benefit payments and pension rights for the unemployed.

Those left out of pocket may not support the larger vision behind the reforms, and some are likely to head back to the barricades. The gilets jaunes movement is winding down, but the simmering anger at Macron could erupt again at any time, blocking any efforts to see through his agenda.

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