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Tag: François Hollande

  • France’s Macron wanted to leave his mark on Europe — he may have just ruined his legacy

    France’s Macron wanted to leave his mark on Europe — he may have just ruined his legacy

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    French President Emmanuel Macron on a campaign poster back in 2022.

    Sebastien Salom-gomis | Afp | Getty Images

    French President Emmanuel Macron’s failed snap election gamble is likely to take a large toll on his political ambitions and legacy, analysts say — and to weaken the power and influence he has sought to build in Europe in recent years.

    The final round of a snap parliamentary election in France last weekend — called by Macron after his center-right party was trounced in recent European Parliament elections — led to a surprise win for the left-wing New Popular Front alliance, thwarting an expected victory for the far-right National Rally party.

    Center-right Macron, who will remain in office until 2027, now faces the prospect of having to work with a coalition or technocratic government — and a prime minister — of a different political ilk, likely from the left-wing NFF. This is set to make governing France, the passing of legislation and reforms, potentially difficult.

    Not only did Macron’s high-stakes gamble with the snap poll not pay off, analysts note, but the French head of state has damaged his political standing and legacy in Europe, where he has sought a key leadership role.

    “In terms of his legacy, he will be in for a real political fight,” Tina Fordham, founder of Fordham Global Foresight, told CNBC on Monday.

    “Macron remains the towering figure and kingmaker. It will be him who chooses the prime minister, it’ll be Macron that travels to Washington for the 75th [anniversary] NATO summit this week, but those who are suggesting that his gamble paid off [are wrong],” Fordham said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe.”

    “Yes, he was able to keep the far right from first place but they’ve increased their seat share — and now he has to deal with this unruly left and this unruly right,” she added.

    “I’m afraid it probably does [weaken him on a global stage] at a time which is unfortunate for the cohesion of the European Union,” she added.

    Macron looked to be the EU’s leader

    Since taking office in 2017 after the departure of his former boss, then-Socialist President Francois Hollande, Macron has tried to position himself at the center of Europe’s political decision-making — particularly since the departure of the European Union’s most central leader, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in 2021.

    Macron has pushed for closer political and economic integration in the EU, promoting the concept of European sovereignty, economic security and competitiveness, as well as pushing for a more integrated and autonomous European defense strategy that advocates for a “true, European army.”

    He’s credited with creating the European Political Community, bringing leaders from across 50 states in the region to discuss shared challenges and to coordinate joint responses. Macron has also been a staunch supporter of Ukraine, putting pressure on a seemingly more reluctant Germany — and on fellow NATO members — when it came to the supply of Western weapons to Kyiv for it to fight back against Russia.

    He even pitched the possibility of French troops helping on the ground, albeit controversially, going beyond other allies’ pledges.

    French President Emmanuel Macron and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy react after signing an agreement, February 16, 2024 at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France. 

    Pool | Via Reuters

    Only time will tell what France’s political makeup will be in the coming months, but the country is likely to experience weeks of political wrangling and potential deadlock as the left-wing faction angles itself to lead a new government, and to place one of its own politicians as prime minister.

    Although the decision lies in Macron’s hands, he is likely to come under pressure to select a PM from the left-wing bloc, given it won the largest number of seats in the vote. He might even come under pressure to select Hollande, who ran for the NFP and stands as a strong candidate.

    For now, Macron has rejected his current Prime Minister Gabriel Attal’s resignation and on Monday asked him to stay in the post “to ensure the country’s stability.”

    Political instability in France, the euro zone’s second-largest economy after Germany, does not come at a good time in the global political cycle, Ludovic Subran, chief economist at Allianz, told CNBC on Monday. Subran stressed that it was vital that Macron was aligned with the future prime minister.

    “France is not that weak now, but it is not very good because we are in a state-craft situation with the U.S. and China and imagine what could happen in November if [Republican presidential candidate Donald] Trump gets reelected — we’re going to be tested and tested again and again,” Subran told CNBC’s Charlotte Reed in Paris.

    “I think it’s going to be really important that Macron secures the alignment with his prime minister before he says anything in Brussels or Strasbourg,“ Subran said. “He’ll have to make sure there’s a paper-thin divide between he and his prime minister when it comes to international issues like Russia, trade, industrial policies and working toward more flexible fiscal policies for France and for the other member countries in Europe.”

    When it comes to Macron’s position in Europe, Subran said it would now “be hard for him to lecture and to sow the seeds of grand projects for Europe when he’s going to be weak domestically.”

    “If [National Rally figurehead Marine] Le Pen races to power in 2027, it’s going to be a very tainted legacy,” he added.

    Mixed legacy

    While Macron is likely to be praised in some quarters for his pro-European, pro-business and pro-trade approach in office, his legacy at home may be more mixed after this snap election — a decision seen by many as a strategic miscalculation, brought about by Macron’s perceived lack of understanding of voter sentiment and, some say, his perceived arrogance.

    It’s a criticism he’s often faced, as well as accusations of failing to understand the everyday concerns of many French citizens, particularly those living outside the main urban centers.

    Mass protest movements such as the “Yellow Vest” action that emerged in 2018 were largely fueled by anger among large sectors of the population at rising fuel and living costs and economic inequality, and what they perceived to be an out-of-touch, elitist political establishment.

    A police vehicle sprays water cannon at protesters during an anti-government demonstration in Paris on January 26, 2019.

    NurPhoto | NurPhoto | Getty Images

    The rise of the far-right National Rally party is also symptomatic of voter concerns, rightly or wrongly, over immigration and what many supporters see as the erosion of French identity and culture.

    His decision in June to call a snap election after his centrist Renaissance party was trounced in the European Parliament elections, was widely seen as a high-stakes gamble. It hasn’t paid off, and France’s uncertain political outlook will likely perturb France’s European partners, one French political scientist told CNBC.

    “Imagine the EU and international partners and allies of France. What must they think of that [decision to call a snap election]?” Philippe Marlière, professor of French and European politics at University College London, said ahead of the final round of the election on Sunday.

    “They must think, ‘what an amateur. What a mistake. What a mess.’ And it is a mess, which is now affecting us all. Because if France isn’t able to be a reliable partner in the EU when it comes to big issues of the world … people will not forget that it was Macron who created the situation in the first place.”

    French President Emmanuel Macron reviews troops that will take part in the Bastille Day parade, July 2, 2024 in Paris, France. 

    Aurelien Morissard | Via Reuters

    He told CNBC that, in France, most people believed that Macron had, in plain English, brought about a big political mess.

    “Everyone in France today, absolutely everyone — I’m yet to hear or meet someone who says it was a great idea — everyone says it’s a major cock-up. It was an unnecessary gamble which badly, very badly, backfired. He didn’t have an absolute majority before the dissolution [of parliament, the National Assembly] but his party was the main party in the National Assembly … so why did he have to dissolve parliament? Only he knows why he did that.”

    “On a scale of political blunders. I would probably give it a 10 out of 10,” Marlière said.

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  • The EU prepares for war — and this French ship is the tip of the spear

    The EU prepares for war — and this French ship is the tip of the spear

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    ABOARD THE FRENCH HELICOPTER CARRIER TONNERRE — John Denver’s “Country Roads,” a folk song from 1971, resounds through the Tonnerre. 

    It’s 7:30 a.m., and some of the crew aboard the Mistral-class amphibious helicopter carrier are already eating breakfast — loading up on coffee, bread and jam ahead of a planned exercise to storm a Spanish beach. It’s been a short night, and plans for the landing have changed several times.

    The French assault vessel — 199 meters long, 32 meters wide and able to carry 21,500 tons — is a key element in the European Union’s first live military exercise in October off the southern coast of Spain. 

    In the training scenario chosen by top EU military officials, European troops had to assault a beach to rescue the government of a fictitious ally called Seglia. 

    That’s exactly what the Tonnerre (Thunder in English), was designed to do. Called a Landing Helicopter Dock in NATO-speak, the ship can carry helicopters, armored vehicles, tanks and troops; move them overseas at 19 knots and transform into a landing base. Landing craft parked in the 885-square-meter bay can carry men and military vehicles to the shore.

    “Amphibious helicopter carriers are the core of France’s power projection, that is to say the ability to project military capabilities onto enemy territory, or onto allied land confronted with an enemy,” Vessel Captain Adrien Schaar, the commanding officer, told POLITICO speaking from the flight deck. “The Tonnerre can be deployed across the entire spectrum, from low to high intensity.”

    The vessel’s motto —“si vis pacem, para Tonnerre” — is a pun on the famous Latin adage “si vis pacem, para bellum,” meaning, if you want peace, prepare for war.

    The Tonnerre has been in service since 2007 and is stationed in Toulon on France’s Mediterranean coast.

    It’s part of the Mistral class, built by France in the 2000s. They have been deployed for a wide range of operations, including evacuating French and European citizens from the Middle East during the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war and backing France’s military intervention in Mali in 2013. They also participate in NATO missions and U.N. peacekeeping efforts.

    Five ships were built, with France operating three: the Tonnerre, the Mistral and the Dixmude.

    The remaining two have a much more complicated past.

    Former President Nicolas Sarkozy initially sold them to Russia — the first time a NATO country planned to send military equipment to Moscow. However, after Russian President Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea in 2014, it became politically impossible to deliver the Sevastopol and the Vladivostok. Sarkozy’s successor François Hollande canceled the order and France had to refund Russia €950 million, in what remains one of the worst diplomatic fallouts between Paris and Moscow before Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine. 

    France later sold the warships to Egypt, and the whole tangle ended up costing French taxpayers €409 million.

    Floating village

    While the Tonnerre’s mission is the projection of military force, it takes a lot of mundane activity for that to happen.

    The warship is a self-sufficient mini-town with a 69-bed hospital that includes two surgery units, a dentist, gyms and even a boulangerie, where bakers make hundreds of baguettes every day.

    The Tonnerre can go up to three weeks without restocking, explained Pierre, who works in the kitchens and has been a sailor for a decade (his full name cannot be disclosed for security reasons). Military cooks go through special training to learn how to provide crews of hundreds with a balanced diet. Aboard the warship, a typical dinner is chicken, rice and spinach. “You can’t have pasta or French fries every night,” Pierre said.

    For the EU’s October military exercise, the kitchen was running at full tilt, as the Tonnerre hosted about 600 military personnel, including from the army and the air force — in addition to the permanent crew of about 200. The overwhelming majority are men.

    Military cooks go through special training to learn how to provide crews of hundreds with a balanced diet | Laura Kayali/POLITICO

    “At first, some had a hard time adjusting,” said Daniel, who’s been in the army for four-and-a-half years and aboard a warship for the first time, “but if you’re not claustrophobic, you get used to it.” 

    “We’re discovering the navy,” he added, with a grin.

    Amphibious helicopter carriers are, by their nature, inter-service vessels, linking ground, air and naval forces.

    The Tonnerre can act as mobile command and control center, and can carry 16 helicopters as well as 60 armored vehicles, or 13 Leclerc tanks. The 5,200-square-meter flight deck also functions as a track for joggers looking to stretch their legs.

    It’s not always used for war. One of the Tonnerre’s missions was in Lebanon after the 2020 explosions that tore apart the Port of Beirut, when France provided food supplies and construction material. The ship’s narrow, white corridors are decorated with photos of that mission and a framed drawing by cartoonist Plantu on Franco-Lebanese friendship. 

    Not an easy life

    The crew joined for a variety of reasons — the desire to belong to a group, the chance to sail to different countries, an interesting career — but missions aren’t easy.

    Being aboard the Tonnerre for weeks or months at a time means limited contacts with friends and family. Cell phones are allowed — unless the mission requires a blackout — however there’s often no reception and only high-ranking personnel have access to computers.

    Helicopters on the deck | Laura Kayali/POLITICO

    “We adapt, that’s the life of a sailor, but the family has to keep up,” said Charles, who’s been in the navy for nearly three decades and whose father was also a sailor. “Back in the day, there was no contact at all, no contact with the family for months on end.”

    Now, there are landline telephones and TVs — which isn’t always positive.

    In mid-October, the crew gathered in the helicopter hangar to watch France’s nail-biting 29-28 defeat to South Africa in the quarterfinals of the Rugby World Cup.

    In the evening on deck, in a makeshift smoking area, young men in uniform check their phones for an internet connection — but the Spanish shore is too far away. “So we play silly games,” said one of them, scrolling on his smartphone screen with a shrug.

    The lack of decent Wi-Fi is a problem that needs to be addressed to attract and retain younger people, navy chief Admiral Nicolas Vaujour told the French Association of defense journalists, including POLITICO, in Paris last month.

    The warship is a self-sufficient mini-town with a 69-bed hospital that includes two surgery units, a dentist, gyms and even a boulangerie | Laura Kayali/POLITICO

    The French government is also trying to make life easier for sailors and their families, well aware that the navy — like most European militaries — has a talent retention problem. Civilian work may be less exciting, but it is more comfortable and defense contractors are more than willing to poach trained and specialized people from the military.

    The government has come up with a so-called Family Plan to help, among other challenges, with childcare.

    “We’re fully aware that we have to work for the sailors at sea,” Vaujour told the National Assembly earlier this month. “The question I ask my staff is: ‘What have you done today for those at sea? Have you used up at least five minutes of your time for those in operations?’”

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    Laura Kayali

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  • From Napoléon to Macron: How France learned to love Big Brother

    From Napoléon to Macron: How France learned to love Big Brother

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    PARIS — Liberté. Egalité. But mostly: sécurité. 

    It all started with Napoléon Bonaparte. Over two centuries, France cobbled together a surveillance apparatus capable of intercepting private communications; keeping traffic and localization data for up to a year; storing people’s fingerprints; and monitoring most of the territory with cameras.

    This system, which has faced pushback from digital rights organizations and United Nations experts, will get its spotlight moment at the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics. In July next year, France will deploy large-scale, real-time, algorithm-supported video surveillance cameras — a first in Europe. (Not included in the plan: facial recognition.) 

    Last month, the French parliament approved a controversial government plan to allow investigators to track suspected criminals in real-time via access to their devices’ geolocation, camera and microphone. Paris also lobbied in Brussels to be allowed to spy on reporters in the name of national security. 

    Helping France down the path of mass surveillance: a historically strong and centralized state; a powerful law enforcement community; political discourse increasingly focused on law and order; and the terrorist attacks of the 2010s. In the wake of President Emmanuel Macron’s agenda for so-called strategic autonomy, French defense and security giants, as well as innovative tech startups, have also gotten a boost to help them compete globally with American, Israeli and Chinese companies. 

    “Whenever there’s a security issue, the first reflex is surveillance and repression. There’s no attempt in either words or deeds to address it with a more social angle,” said Alouette, an activist at French digital rights NGO La Quadrature du Net who uses a pseudonym to protect her identity. 

    As surveillance and security laws have piled up in recent decades, advocates have lined up on opposite sides. Supporters argue law enforcement and intelligence agencies need such powers to fight terrorism and crime. Algorithmic video surveillance would have prevented the 2016 Nice terror attack, claimed Sacha Houlié, a prominent lawmaker from Macron’s Renaissance party.

    Opponents point to the laws’ effect on civil liberties and fear France is morphing into a dystopian society. In June, the watchdog in charge of monitoring intelligence services said in a harsh report that French legislation is not compliant with the European Court of Human Rights’ case law, especially when it comes to intelligence-sharing between French and foreign agencies.

    “We’re in a polarized debate with good guys and bad guys, where if you oppose mass surveillance, you’re on the bad guys’ side,” said Estelle Massé, Europe legislative manager and global data protection lead at digital rights NGO Access Now. 

    A history of surveillance

    Both the 9/11 and the Paris 2015 terror attacks have accelerated mass surveillance in France, but the country’s tradition of snooping, monitoring and data collection dates way back — to Napoléon Bonaparte in the early 1800s. 

    “Historically, France has been at the forefront of these issues, in terms of police files and records. During the First Empire, France’s highly centralized government was determined to square the entire territory,” said Olivier Aïm, a lecturer at Sorbonne Université Celsa who authored a book on surveillance theories. Before electronic devices, paper was the main tool of control because identification documents were used to monitor travels, he explained. 

    The French emperor revived the Paris Police Prefecture — which exists to this day — and tasked law enforcement with new powers to keep political opponents in check. 

    In the 1880s, Alphonse Bertillon devised a method of identifying suspects and criminals using biometric features | Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

    In the 1880s, Alphonse Bertillon, who worked for the Paris Police Prefecture, introduced a new way of identifying suspects and criminals using biometric features — the forerunner of facial recognition. The Bertillon method would then be emulated across the world.

    Between 1870 and 1940, under the Third Republic, the police kept a massive file — dubbed the National Security’s Central File — with information about 600,000 people, including anarchists and communists, certain foreigners, criminals, and people who requested identification documents. 

    After World War II ended, a bruised France moved away from hard-line security discourse until the 1970s. And in the early days of the 21st century, the 9/11 attacks in the United States marked a turning point, ushering in a steady stream of controversial surveillance laws — under both left- and right-wing governments. In the name of national security, lawmakers started giving intelligence services and law enforcement unprecedented powers to snoop on citizens, with limited judiciary oversight. 

    “Surveillance covers a history of security, a history of the police, a history of intelligence,” Aïm said. “Security issues have intensified with the fight against terrorism, the organization of major events and globalization.” 

    The rise of technology

    In the 1970s, before the era of omnipresent smartphones, French public opinion initially pushed back against using technology to monitor citizens. 

    In 1974, as ministries started using computers, Le Monde revealed a plan to merge all citizens’ files into a single computerized database, a project known as SAFARI.

    The project, abandoned amid the resulting scandal, led lawmakers to adopt robust data protection legislation — creating the country’s privacy regulator CNIL. France then became one of the few European countries with rules to protect civil liberties in the computer age. 

    However, the mass spread of technology — and more specifically video surveillance cameras in the 1990s — allowed politicians and local officials to come up with new, alluring promises: security in exchange for surveillance tech. 

    In 2020, there were about 90,000 video surveillance cameras powered by the police and the gendarmerie in France. The state helps local officials finance them via a dedicated public fund. After France’s violent riots in early July — which also saw Macron float social media bans during periods of unrest — Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin announced he would swiftly allocate €20 million to repair broken video surveillance devices. 

    In parallel, the rise of tech giants such as Google, Facebook and Apple in everyday life has led to so-called surveillance capitalism. And for French policymakers, U.S. tech giants’ data collection has over the years become an argument to explain why the state, too, should be allowed to gather people’s personal information. 

    “We give Californian startups our fingerprints, face identification, or access to our privacy from our living room via connected speakers, and we would refuse to let the state protect us in the public space?” Senator Stéphane Le Rudulier from the conservative Les Républicains said in June to justify the use of facial recognition on the street. 

    Strong state, strong statesmen

    Resistance to mass surveillance does exist in France at the local level — especially against the development of so-called safe cities. Digital rights NGOs can boast a few wins: In the south of France, La Quadrature du Net scored a victory in an administrative court, blocking plans to test facial recognition in high schools. 

    Some grassroots movements have opposed surveillance schemes at the local level, but the nationwide legislative push has continued | Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images

    At the national level, however, security laws are too powerful a force, despite a few ongoing cases before the European Court of Human Rights. For example, France has de facto ignored multiple rulings from the EU top court that deemed mass data retention illegal. 

    Often at the center of France’s push for more state surveillance: the interior minister. This influential office, whose constituency includes the law enforcement and intelligence community, is described as a “stepping stone” toward the premiership — or even the presidency. 

    “Interior ministers are often powerful, well-known and hyper-present in the media. Each new minister pushes for new reforms, new powers, leading to the construction of a never-ending security tower,” said Access Now’s Massé.

    Under Socialist François Hollande, Manuel Valls and Bernard Cazeneuve both went from interior minister to prime minister in, respectively, 2014 and 2016. Nicolas Sarkozy, Jacques Chirac’s interior minister from 2005 to 2007, was then elected president. All shepherded new surveillance laws under their tenure.

    In the past year, Darmanin has been instrumental in pushing for the use of police drones, even going against the CNIL.

    For politicians, even at the local level, there is little to gain electorally by arguing against expanded snooping and the monitoring of public space. “Many on the left, especially in complicated cities, feel obliged to go along, fearing accusations of being soft [on crime],” said Noémie Levain, a legal and political analyst at La Quadrature du Net. “The political cost of reversing a security law is too high,” she added.

    It’s also the case that there’s often little pushback from the public. In March, on the same day a handful of French MPs voted to allow AI-powered video surveillance cameras at the 2024 Paris Olympics, about 1 million people took to the streets to protest against … Macron’s pension reform. 

    Sovereign cameras

    For politicians, France’s industrial competitiveness is also at stake. The country is home to defense giants that dabble in both the military and civilian sectors, such as Thalès and Safran. Meanwhile, Idemia specializes in biometrics and identification. 

    “What’s accelerating legislation is also a global industrial and geopolitical context: Surveillance technologies are a Trojan horse for artificial intelligence,” said Caroline Lequesne Rot, an associate professor at the Côte d’Azur University, adding that French policymakers are worried about foreign rivals. “Europe is caught between the stranglehold of China and the U.S. The idea is to give our companies access to markets and allow them to train.”

    In 2019, then-Digital Minister Cédric O told Le Monde that experimenting with facial recognition was needed to allow French companies to improve their technology. 

    France’s surveillance apparatus will be on full display at the 2024 Olympic Games | Patrick Kovarik/AFP via Getty Images

    For the video surveillance industry — which made €1.6 billion in France in 2020 — the 2024 Paris Olympics will be a golden opportunity to test their products and services and showcase what they can do in terms of AI-powered surveillance. 

    XXII — an AI startup with funding from the armed forces ministry and at least some political backing — has already hinted it would be ready to secure the mega sports event. 

    “If we don’t encourage the development of French and European solutions, we run the risk of later becoming dependent on software developed by foreign powers,” wrote lawmakers Philippe Latombe, from Macron’s allied party Modem, and Philippe Gosselin, from Les Républicains, in a parliamentary report on video surveillance released in April.

    “When it comes to artificial intelligence, losing control means undermining our sovereignty,” they added.

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    Laura Kayali

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  • Theater or Zelenskyy? How Macron keeps failing to lead European response to Ukraine war

    Theater or Zelenskyy? How Macron keeps failing to lead European response to Ukraine war

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    When Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy traveled to Western Europe last week to drum up support for his country’s fight against Russia, he made a last-minute stopover in Paris.

    French President Emmanuel Macron was lucky to get the nod.

    Macron’s attitude toward Ukraine’s war effort has frequently proved inscrutable to allies who wonder why France seemed to be hedging its bets by pursuing dialogue with Russian President Vladimir Putin and touting the need for “security guarantees” for Moscow.

    While German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has suffered bruising criticism over the slow pace of his decision to send Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, Paris’ contribution to the overall war effort has been substantially smaller, both in absolute terms and as a percentage of gross domestic product, than Berlin’s, according to a ranking from the Kiel Institute for World Economy updated at the end of last year.

    Even accounting for Macron’s more recent pledge to deliver Caesar howitzers and, jointly with Italy, a MAMBA air defense system, France’s overall support effort is likely to remain well below that of the biggest helpers in 2023. As of November, Poland had pledged more than €3 billion in aid, while the United Kingdom has offered more than €7 billion. France, by contrast, offered €1.4 billion — placing the country well below Western allies in terms of a percentage of GDP.

    When Zelenskyy left Ukraine to visit Western leaders last week, Paris didn’t issue a formal invitation — and the meeting with Macron nearly didn’t happen. The French president had originally planned to spend the evening at the theater with his wife. It was only when aides saw footage of Zelenskyy’s solemn address at Westminster Hall in London that they rushed out an invitation and arranged for the late-evening visit in Paris, according to an Elysée official.

    No wonder Zelenskyy nearly missed Paris.

    When asked why France has sometimes pursued a divergent path on Ukraine compared with other Western allies, French officials defend Macron. In an interview with POLITICO, former French President François Hollande said it made sense to speak to Putin before the invasion to “deprive him of any arguments or pretexts.” A French diplomat added: “It was either that or do nothing. He [Macron] decided to try diplomacy — I don’t think we can blame him for that.”

    As for France’s tepid contribution to the war effort, officials argue that, as continental Europe’s premier military power, Paris has other security responsibilities, namely defending Europe’s southern flank, and must retain some capacity. Sending France’s Leclerc tanks, they say, doesn’t make sense because they are no longer in production and couldn’t easily be replaced.

    But when asked if France is leading on Ukraine, the same officials tend to shrug.

    For François Heisbourg, senior adviser to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, Macron’s zig-zagging approach to the Ukraine war effort represents a missed opportunity not just in terms of hard power — but in terms of Macron’s larger ambition, spelled out in his 2017 Sorbonne speech, to position himself as a European leader in the lineage of former President François Mitterrand, former Prime Minister Michel Rocard or former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl.

    “2022 was a year of missed chances,” said Heisbourg. Macron “spent 15 days going around telling everyone who would listen that Russia required security guarantees, as if Russia wasn’t grown-up enough to request them itself.”

    In an interview with POLITICO, former French President François Hollande said it made sense to speak to Putin before the invasion | Pool photo by Gonzalo Fuentes/AFP via Getty Images

    Macron “can still make up the lost time, but the precondition for that is to be extremely clear on Ukraine, and from there to recover legitimacy among the central European states.”

    France’s ‘open road’

    The irony is that in geopolitical terms, Paris has rarely had a better chance to lead Europe.

    Britain has left the European Union, removing a major liberal counterweight to France’s statism. Germany’s Olaf Scholz has been tied down by coalition politics and the impact of Berlin’s failed bet on Russian energy. France, by contrast, enjoyed stable government and the benefits of relative energy independence thanks to its early embrace of nuclear power. As far as Paris’ position in Europe was concerned, “the road was open,” said Heisbourg.

    In some ways, Macron has exploited this opportunity. Paris has been by far the most vocal advocate for a robust EU response to U.S. President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, a bumper package of subsidies for green business. When he traveled to Washington in November, the French president very much looked like a European leader delivering grievances to a trade rival — and bringing home results for all of the EU.

    Yet France’s attempts at economic leadership within the EU haven’t translated into a wider bid to become Europe’s security guarantor and consensus builder. “No one has replaced Angela Merkel at the Council table,” argued one Eastern European diplomat when asked who was currently “leading” the EU. Hollande and several diplomats lamented the deterioration of Franco-German ties under Macron, saying that it undermined the bloc’s coherence and any hope of a more integrated approach to defense.

    As the war in Ukraine nears its first anniversary, Macron has pivoted toward much more full-throated support for Kyiv. In his New Year’s address to the French, he promised Ukrainians to “help you until victory” — making the rhetorical switch from “Russia can’t win the war.” He’s left a door open to training Ukrainian pilots on Western fighter jets and made a significant contribution to the MAMBA missile defense system. “Toward victory, toward peace, toward Europe,” he tweeted during Zelenskyy’s visit to Paris.

    Yet France also remains one of the most skeptical countries in the EU when it comes to accepting Ukraine into the bloc, and its overall contribution still pales in comparison to other countries.

    Macron still has three years in office, plenty of time to double down on his newfound interest in Ukrainian “victory.”

    But with street protests over planned pension reforms now dogging his presidency at home, the golden opportunity is fading.

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    Nicholas Vinocur

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  • Vladimir Putin is not mad, just ‘radically rational,’ says former French president

    Vladimir Putin is not mad, just ‘radically rational,’ says former French president

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    PARIS — Vladimir Putin is a “radically rational” leader who is betting that Western countries will grow tired of backing Ukraine and agree a negotiated end to the conflict that will be favorable to Russia, former French President François Hollande told POLITICO.

    Hollande, who served from 2012 to 2017, has plenty of first-hand experience with Putin. He led negotiations with the Russian leader, along with former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, under the so-called Normandy format in 2014 after Moscow annexed Crimea from Ukraine and supported pro-Russian separatists in the Donbass region.

    But those efforts at dialogue proved fruitless, exposing Putin as a leader who only understands strength and casting doubt on all later attempts at talks — including a controversial solo effort led by current French President Emmanuel Macron, Hollande said in an interview at his Paris office.

    “He [Putin] is a radically rational person, or a rationally radical person, as you like,” said the former French leader, when asked if Putin could seek to widen the conflict beyond Ukraine. “He’s got his own reasoning and within that framework, he’s ready to use force. He’s only able to understand the [power] dynamic that we’re able to set up against him.”

    Ahead of the one-year anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, Hollande added that Putin would seek to “consolidate his gains to stabilize the conflict, hoping that public opinion will get tired and that Europeans will fear escalation in order to bring up at that stage the prospect of a negotiation.”

    But unlike when he was in power and Paris and Berlin led talks with Putin, this time the job of mediating is likely to fall to Turkey or China — “which won’t be reassuring for anyone,” Hollande said.

    Macron, who served as Hollande’s economy minister before leaving his government and going on to win the presidency in 2017, has tried his own hand at diplomacy with Russia, holding numerous one-on-one calls with Putin both before and after his invasion of Ukraine.

    But the outreach didn’t yield any clear results, prompting criticism from Ukraine and Eastern Europeans who also objected to Macron saying that Russia would require “security guarantees” after the war is over. 

    Hollande stopped short of criticizing his successor over the Putin outreach. It made sense to speak with Putin before the invasion to “deprive him of any arguments or pretexts,” he said. But after a “brief period of uncertainty” following the invasion, “the question [about the utility of dialogue] was unfortunately settled.”

    Frustration with France and Germany’s leadership, or lack thereof, during the Ukraine war has bolstered arguments that power in Europe is moving eastward into the hands of countries like Poland, which have been most forthright in supporting Ukraine. 

    But Hollande wasn’t convinced, arguing that northern and eastern countries are casting in their lot with the United States at their own risk. “These countries, essentially the Baltics, the Scandinavians, are essentially tied to the United States. They see American protection as a shield.” 

    Former French President François Hollande | Antonio Cotrim/EFE via EPA

    “Until today,” he continued, U.S. President Joe Biden has shown “exemplary solidarity and lived up to his role in the transatlantic alliance perfectly. But tomorrow, with a different American president and a more isolationist Congress, or at least less keen on spending, will the United States have the same attitude?”

    “We must convince our partners that the European Union is about principles and political values. We should not deviate from them, but the partnership can also offer precious, and solid, security guarantees,” Hollande added.

    Throwing shade

    Hollande was one of France’s most unpopular presidents while in office, with approval ratings in the low single digits. But he has enjoyed something of a revival since leaving the Elysée and is now the country’s second-most popular politician behind former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, five spots ahead of Macron — in keeping with the adage that the French prefer their leaders when they are safely out of office.

    His time in office was racked with crises. In addition to failed diplomacy over Ukraine, Hollande led France’s response to a series of terrorist attacks, presided over Europe’s sovereign debt crisis with Merkel, and faced massive street protests against labor reforms.

    On that last point, Macron is now feeling some of the heat that Hollande felt during the last months of his presidency. More than a million French citizens have joined marches against a planned pension system reform, and further strikes are planned. Hollande criticized the reform plans, which would raise the age of retirement to 64, as poorly planned.

    “Did the president choose the right time? Given the succession of crises and with elevated inflation, the French want to be reassured. Did the government propose the right reform? I don’t think so either — it’s seen as unfair and brutal,” said Hollande. “But now that a parliamentary process has been set into motion, the executive will have to strike a compromise or take the risk of going all the way and raising the level of anger.”

    A notable difference between him and Macron is the quality of the Franco-German relationship. While Hollande and Merkel took pains to showcase a form of political friendship, the two sides have been plainly at odds under Macron — prompting a carefully-worded warning from the former commander-in-chief.

    Former French President Francois Hollande with former German Chancellor Angela Merkel | Thierry Chesnot/Getty images

    “In these moments when everything is being redefined, the Franco-German couple is the indispensable core that ensures the EU’s cohesion. But it needs to redefine the contributions of both parties and set new goals — including European defense,” said Hollande.

    “It’s not about seeing one another more frequently, or speaking more plainly, but taking the new situation into account because if that work isn’t done, and if that political foundation isn’t secure, and if misunderstandings persist, it’s not just a bilateral disagreement between France and Germany that we’ll have, but a stalled European Union,” he said, adding that he “hoped” a recent Franco-German summit had “cleared up misunderstandings.”

    The socialist leader also had some choice words for Macron over the way he’s trying to rally Europeans around a robust response to Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which offers major subsidies to American green industry. Several EU countries have come out against plans, touted by Paris, to create a “Buy European Act” and raise new money to support EU industries.

    During a joint press conference on Monday, Macron and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte agreed to disagree on the EU’s response.

    “On the IRA, France is discovering that its partners are, for the most part, liberal governments. When you tell the Dutch or the Scandinavians hear about direct aid [for companies], they hear something that goes against not just the spirit, but also the letter of the treaties,” Hollande said.

    Another issue rattling European politics lately is the Qatargate corruption scandal, in which current and former MEPs as well as lobbyists are accused of taking cash in exchange for influencing the European Parliament’s work in favor of Qatar and Morocco. 

    Hollande recalled that his own administration had been hit by a scandal when his budget minister was found to be lying about Swiss bank accounts he’d failed to disclose from tax authorities. The scandal led to Hollande establishing the Haute autorité pour la transparence de la vie publique — an independent authority that audits public officials and has the power to refer any misdeeds to a prosecutor.

    Now would be a good time for the EU to follow that example and establish an independent ethics body of its own, Hollande said.

    “I think it’s a good institution that would have a role to play in Brussels,” he said. “Some countries will be totally in favor because integrity and transparency are part of their basic values. Others, like Poland and Hungary, will see a challenge to their sovereignty.”

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    Nicholas Vinocur

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