Tracing French Diplomacy: A Brief History of Macron's Foreign Policy

Macron’s three chapters

In La France dans le bouleversement du monde, I outline three distinct periods that break up Macron’s five-year term.

The leader of international liberalism (2017-2019)

Given Donald Trump, and given the weakening of the German Chancellor and the British and Italian leaders, Emmanuel Macron is skillfully establishing himself as the legitimist opposition leader to the White House, while still being the one to whisper in the ears of the American president. This show of funambulism is seen in moments such as "make the Planet Great again" or of the battle to save the JCPOA, which did not nonetheless impede Trump from walking down the Champs Elysées or Macron from visiting the White House.

In the meantime, Macron is firmly managing Brexit negotiations and making European defense or "strategic autonomy" markers of his plea for "European sovereignty."

The turning point of summer 2019 

The Yellow Vests crisis forced the president to step back on the global stage, but the Biarritz G7 summit at the end of August 2019 opened a door for him to "re-emerge" and boost his standing. He launched the dialogue with Putin in Brégançon, without prior consultation with EU partners, failed to facilitate a Trump-Rouhani meeting, and a few weeks later (in November), in an interview with The Economist, made the famous diagnosis of "NATO’s braindeath". From this moment onwards, his stance on Erdogan's Turkey also hardened.

The conjunction of the Russian initiative and the NATO comments shook up the President’s credibility amongst his EU partners and the Americans (especially the Democrats). That was only reinforced by the fact that the failed dialogue with Moscow did not lead Macron to change his attitude.

The moment of truth (Covid-19 and the election of Biden)

In early 2020, the outbreak of the pandemic brought a change of scenery. This confirmed the validity of Emmanuel Macron's intuition on the need for international cooperation ("effective multilateralism"). Above all however, the Covid-19 crisis led Germany to agree to a massive European recovery plan, including a certain mutualization of debts. This was a major step forward for Macron's project for greater European integration.

This is also a moment of truth for Macron's policy in other areas. First in the Sahel, with the repeated Malian military coups and the strategic move by Moscow (which supports the junta) against Paris. Then in the Indo-Pacific, with AUKUS. There will certainly be other key moments in the months to come, beginning with the relationship with Washington, where it is not yet clear if the submarine crisis will re-establish a closer relationship between France and the US. The relationship with London must be observed as well (a fishermen's crisis is to be expected, for example), as should ties with Berlin (there is the risky perspective of a resumption of inflation and therefore a rise in interest rates). There are also the many twists and turns that may occur between now and the presidential election of May 2022.

So what is the overall assessment? 

It is clear that the successes, namely the EU recovery plan and the EU vaccination strategy, cannot overshadow relative failures, such as sterile dialogues with Trump and especially with Putin, or lack of progress in Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Libya, risks concerning the Sahel, and other potential crises. 

Three reasons may explain this mixed track record:

• The personality factor: Macron's impatience sometimes leads him to statements or attitudes that backfire on him. 
   
• Some deficiencies in the French decision-making system: the French President ends up excessively personifying the country’s foreign policy. Furthermore, the State apparatus hasn’t yet fully adapted to a new international context, in which the "geo-economic map" is now as important as the "geo-strategic map".
   
• A certain gap between means and ambitions: this discrepancy makes it increasingly difficult for France to act purely alone, especially at a time when it appears more isolated in Europe and less connected to the United States than before.

All in all, it is France's strategic positioning that is at stake. Post-Covid and post-US elections, we are now in a new global context, marked by the intensifying US-China competition. The question is, will the Macron doctrine - or the French approach - be able to adjust? 

Copyright: STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN / POOL / AFP