How Emmanuel Macron caught the British disease

Grandstanding about China will not restore French prestige

Strange to say, there is something inescapably British about Emmanuel Macron’s foreign policy grandstanding.

Such was the lavish reception laid on for the French president by China’s Xi Jinping that Macron felt compelled to swagger that “France is not considered to be a country like any other." The mutual attraction between the two nations, he continued, engendered “a fascination, a friendship, a path that is our own”.

I was reminded of Boris Johnson’s boast when Britain finally left the European Union. Brexit, the then prime minister boomed, would usher in a second Elizabethan age. The new “Global Britain”, refuelled with the buccaneering spirit of the glory days, would again stride unchecked across the world stage.

On a personal level, of course, it is grossly unfair to draw parallels between Johnson and Macron. The former is a charlatan and liar with a grasp of global affairs gleaned from the storybooks of empire that pass for history at Britain’s more expensive public schools. Macron, whatever the immodesty, thinks hard about France’s place in Europe and Europe’s role in the world. 

Both nations, though, took wrong turns when the Suez debacle sounded the last trumpet for their respective empires in 1956. The British threw in their lot with the Americans -  self-imagined Greeks to Washington’s Romans. France, in the thrall of the General, set about building Europe in opposition to the United States.

What London and Paris agreed on was that they could defy the big shifts in global power by “punching above their weight” in international affairs. The effort has always carried an air of desperation.

For Britain, of course, the remnants of this strategy was blown up by Brexit. Until 2016 it did a fair job of leveraging twin relationships with Washington and Brussels in the quest to amplify its voice in both sides. The Brexiters are now learning that by severing ties with the European Union they have succeeded also in diminishing Britain’s status in the United States. 

Joe Biden sent a calculated message this week when he followed a half-day visit to Belfast to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday agreement with an extended tour of the Republic of Ireland. There was no time in the president’s calendar, Britain’s Rishi Sunak was told, for him to make the short hop across the Irish sea to London. Sunak is still waiting for an invitation to the White House.

France’s post-Suez vision of European equidistance from the great powers has had its own problems. German unification robbed France of its claim to Europe’s political leadership. Eastern enlargement pulled into the Union a clutch of nations that see Atlanticism as a vital safeguard against Russian revanchism. Paris has had to shout ever louder to be heard. 

Perhaps this explains why Macron cannot resist scratching the Gaullist itch. It doesn’t help. To the contrary, as well as drowning out the entirely sensible things he has to say about Europe’s need to develop strategic autonomy, the president’s rhetorical flourishes put France’s grand pretensions and his personal vanity in plain sight. They make him look, well, a bit silly.

First, the sensible bits. It is hard to imagine how any European leader could object to the proposition that, in an era of such global turbulence, the European Union must do more to build up its capacity to make its own decisions about its economic relationships and security. One day, Washington might turn its back.

Macron’s suggestions during a speech this week in Amsterdam for greater cohesion in defence, coordinated management of borders and migration, and a special relationship with African nations read like common sense. He is right too to applaud the advances the Union has made in recent years - in debt mutualisation, pandemic coordination and, post Russia’s attack on Ukraine, defence collaboration. The choice is between a political Europe and irrelevance.

The most passionate Atlanticists can surely agree that European nations should contribute more to their own defence. Vladimir Putin’s aggression has underlined how much the continent still relies on America’s security umbrella. Partnership with Washington should not mean dependency. Nor should it mean offering a blank cheque to Washington’s China hawks.

Macron’s mistake - and the cause of the storm that greeted his latest comments - is to imply that the purpose of self-sufficiency is to allow Europe to strike a pose as an entirely independent power sitting between the United States and China. Here, Gaullism has got the better of him. Macron does not really believe that the United States presents a threat to Europe comparable to that of Xi’s China. If there is a choice to be made, France will always opt for America.

For all the furore they provoked, the president’s remarks about Taiwan are not overly distant from the private thoughts of many other European leaders. No one wants to get caught up in a crisis of someone else’s making. The widespread fear is of a needless escalation of Sino-American tensions.

Europe’s interest lies in the preservation of the (deliberately ambiguous) status quo in the Taiwan Straits. In those circumstances it makes no sense at all for Macron to hint publicly that Europe would sit it out if China launched a military assault on Taiwan.

In his fear of being marooned on the margins of influence, Macron conveniently overlooks the strategic significance of Putin’s war. Xi’s partnership with the Russian leader marks out their joint challenge to European security. You cannot rely on American support for Ukraine and then play at being Beijing’s best friend. 

Ursula von der Leyen grasps this in her proposal for a distinctly European policy of “de-risking” the relationship with China. Macron, as far as one can tell, has signed off on the proposal. Yet the Elysee, one supposes, thinks it does not sound sufficiently “French”. The result leaves Macron looking, well, desperately British.