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Why Macron "pivoted" to Europe
Author: Jacob Ross
Translator: Zhang Chen
Introduction to France and Italy
Since taking office, Macron has pursued Gaullistism in French foreign policy, but in a rapidly changing situation, France also seems to be turning to Europe, that is, to focus on ensuring European security and strengthening European alliances. The author analyzes the background, process, and possible impact of this shift on the Western world landscape.
The EU in 2024 seems to have lost its way. The German chancellor turned to the United States for help when he needed leadership, leaving behind French President Emmanuel Macron.
©REUTERS/FabianBimmer
IPQ2/2024
In the spring of 2024, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz once again faced fierce criticism at home and abroad. At the beginning of the year, Scholz presented himself as a European leader, emphasizing Germany's leadership in aiding Ukraine and calling on EU allies to do more, and now the "Taurus missile debate" has once again put him in a difficult position. His refusal to take the initiative and his agreement to deliver powerful cruise missiles to Ukraine have raised doubts at home and abroad about the seriousness of Germany's turn, the so-called Zeitenwende.
Germany is a civil power and the European Union aims at peace, both of which are being challenged by Russia, which continues to use force to change national borders in the 21st century. In order to respond to this, Germany is needed to play a leading role in Europe, but the signs are not encouraging. In the 18 months leading up to the next federal election, 72 percent of German respondents favored increasing defense spending, achieving NATO's goal of spending 2 percent of GDP on security, and 66 percent favoring further arms supplies to Ukraine, according to a survey conducted by the Körber Foundation. However, 71% of respondents oppose Germany's main military role in Europe – a figure that is likely to be well known in the Chancellery.
The findings reflect long-standing European criticism of the German government, both in relation to Scholz and in relation to his predecessor. Sufficient funds, the Germans can maintain the status quo. But to develop new ideas, move forward and reposition the EU in a changing world, Germany cannot be relied upon. The coalition agreement of this administration is ambitious on paper and provides for discussions on the path to a "federal state of Europe". However, the debate between the center-left Social Democrats ("SPD"), the Greens and the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP), and the so-called "German vote" in Brussels, which was forced to abstain due to disagreement between the three ruling parties, have hampered the process more than ever before. The common impression among many EU partners is that Germany is holding back change.
French disappointment
With Germany fading out of sight and eyes turning to France, President Macron is happy to lead Europe. From his speech at the Sorbonne in September 2017 to his speech in Bratislava in May 2023, Macron has made clear his desire to leave behind the legacy of European policy throughout his presidency. In the interim, France, Germany and Europe have achieved some notable achievements: the launch of a huge arms program in 2017, the signing of an ambitious new bilateral treaty in Aachen in 2019, and the adoption of the Strategic Compass program in 2022 under the French presidency of the Council of the European Union. Shortly thereafter, EU member states signed the "Versailles Agenda" to strengthen the EU arms industry.
Macron, however, is not close to his ultimate goal. Today's EU has no sovereignty at all. The French president blamed Scholz in particular for having made little progress in the EU's Common Security and Defense Policy, apart from new financing instruments, since Russia launched its war against Ukraine. The 2017 moment of solidarity has gone down the drain. At that time, after his first meeting with Donald Trump just months after he became president of the United States, then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel returned home and said: "The time when we could rely on others is over". Merkel was clearly referring to the United States, and the people of Paris listened. The fact that she spoke in May 2017, shortly after Macron's election, means that the historic initiative of France and Germany to establish a sovereign European Union in terms of security policy seems to have grounds.
However, Merkel did not follow up with a performance. And since February 2022 at the latest, her successor, Olaf Scholz, has made no secret of his intention to once again be as closely linked as possible to the American side. This is a return to the role of Germany during the Cold War and a revision of the 2017 position. Thus, the Franco-German agreement of this period is being fundamentally questioned. From France's point of view, the Future Combat Air System (FCAS) and Main Ground Combat System (MGCS) armament programs are based on the belief that in the long run, the EU must assert itself independently in the 21st century. It is no coincidence that the Treaty of Aachen included a bilateral mutual assistance clause in which the armed forces of the two countries would move closer to a "common culture." Now, concerns about Trump's possible return to the White House have added new urgency to those considerations.
Difficult allies
France is actively preparing for a second presidency of Trump. However, unlike in 2017, Macron is now familiar with the distrust of European allies. France's demand for leadership has a long and complex history, dating back to the European Defense Community ("EDC"), a French initiative that failed to pass in 1954 due to resistance from the French National Assembly. In 1966, France, then led by Charles de Gaulle, withdrew from NATO's military command structure immediately after having its own nuclear deterrent. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, many French politicians predicted that NATO was superfluous and would become history. At the same time, they are hesitant about the EU's subsequent developments, especially the eastward expansion of 2004 and the growing influence of small member states.
For decades, France's influence in Western alliance structures such as the European Union and NATO has been influenced by the legacy of Gaullistism. Its so-called unconditional insistence on national sovereignty has made France's initiative to strengthen cooperation unconvincing, and this is particularly evident in its security and defence policy. Those who always emphasize that they can do everything independently have a hard time cultivating partners. Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Macron and his government have suffered several setbacks over this shortcoming, most recently when discussing the possibility of Europeanizing France's nuclear deterrent. To date, no partner in the EU, let alone NATO, has been able to conceive a Franco-led alternative to the existing US nuclear umbrella.
Since 2017, Macron has instinctively followed the Gaullist maxim, viewing international politics as "multipolar" and wanting to stop at all costs from forming a new bloc. A striking example – and many more – is his statement about the EU's independent position between China and the United States, which he used to snub his Western partners on his return from a visit to China in April 2023. Macron knows that this position is still popular in France today. After all, the greatest success of French diplomacy in recent years has not been the Paris Agreement of 2015, but France's "opposition" to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the speech of then-Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin to the UN Security Council.
The first turn
Although Macron has always adhered to a "Gaullist" approach to French foreign policy, he has recently changed course, the most important of which is reflected in his speech in Bratislava. A French president became an advocate of the accession of Ukraine and Georgia to NATO, which is tantamount to a revolution in 2023. Soon, talk began to be made of Bratislava's "anti-Bucharest moment", alluding to France's (and Germany's) historical opposition to the two countries' accession to NATO, a stance that caused controversy at the 2008 NATO summit in Bucharest. Since then, government representatives have been fond of talking about the "Bratislava Agenda" because it breaks with France's traditional foreign and security policy positions.
Macron himself seems to have learned from the mistakes of the past. In Bratislava, he first changed his 2019 diagnosis of NATO's "brain death" and said that Russia's attack on Ukraine was an "electric shock" that brought the transatlantic alliance, not the European Union, back to life. Instead of insisting on historic claims to EU sovereignty and offending its allies with polemical statements about NATO, the "Bratislava Agenda" establishes a new pragmatism of French foreign policy, trying to adapt to the changing geopolitical environment on the European continent. Macron himself no longer defines European security as "with Russia", but as anti-Russian. French officials have noticeably shifted to talk about strengthening the "European pillar within NATO."
Instead of isolating himself, Macron positions himself as a pioneer of the Western alliance structure. He did so thanks to the weakness of the German Chancellor and US President Joe Biden, who is clearly struggling with the US election campaign. In February, Macron's statement about Western ground forces in Ukraine sparked controversy after a meeting in Paris is just one example of this new line. The French president continues to insist on the long-term need for EU autonomy, which remains crucial to domestic political debates, including during the European Parliament election campaign. But at the same time, Macron has also expressed his willingness to put France's long-term goals in Europe on the back burner in the short term. His concessions on the issue of the procurement of non-European ammunition for Ukraine are an example of this.
French resistance
However, it is uncertain how long Macron's pivot will last. France's political path dependence and bureaucratic inertia were evident in the negotiation process of the defense policy budget adopted in 2023. High hopes are placed on the corresponding law, the Law on Military Planning ("LPM"), as the allocation of funds between 2024-2030 hints at France's priorities for the coming years. Political commitments will soon be revised, and the numbers in the Law on Military Plans do not lie. The fact that the Navy, rather than the Army, emerged as the winner in the corresponding negotiations – against the backdrop of a significant increase in funding across the Ministry of Defense – has also caused shock outside France.
After all, Macron's announcement of a "shift to high-intensity warfare" in 2023 aims to give new importance to France's pledge of the unity of its allies along NATO's eastern defense. France will invest heavily in the coming years to build new aircraft carriers or spy on France's overseas territories – but at the same time, it will be starved of funds to strengthen Europe's military structures, weapons systems and ammunition – raising voices that doubt the seriousness of the Bratislava agenda.
A journalist familiar with the events of the beginning of the year quipped: "Tahiti is still more important than Warsaw." "There has been speculation about the extent to which Macron's commitment to European security and NATO's eastern flank is linked to his failures in West Africa in recent years. In February 2022, just days before the Russia-Ukraine conflict, France announced the withdrawal of its troops from Mali. Since then, France has been forced to withdraw its troops from Burkina Faso and Niger, and has announced reductions in its troops in Senegal, Gabon and Côte d'Ivoire. Although representatives of the Ministry of Defense deny that there is a direct connection between the two, the question is obvious: is France "turning to Europe"?
Turn to opportunity as an opportunity
France's "return" to Europe is good news for Franco-German relations and European security. French sovereignists like to emphasize that since the Suez crisis of 1956, Britain has resigned itself to the end of the British Empire and has accepted its own secondary role in its special relationship with the United States. Since then, France has become the only European power with global political influence. Brexit and the ambitions associated with the slogan "Global Britain" have not seriously affected the self-evaluation of the French side. On the contrary, the decline of the influence of former colonial empires in many French-speaking countries of West Africa has sparked a debate that is in some cases tinged with existentialism. After the coup d'état in Niger, the French ambassador was asked to leave the country, which some commentators in France considered to be a new "Suez" or even another "Dien Bien Phu", alluding to France's defeat in the First Indochina War in 1954.
The withdrawal of the French ambassador to West Africa and the replacement of representatives of Russia, China or Turkey have touched the very roots of French foreign policy. As the heir to the universal ideas of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, France's assertion of "having something to say" about the world in the 21st century has taken root far beyond diplomacy. Anyone can see the identity crisis in France as a manifestation of the crisis in which the entire West and its universal values of human rights and democracy are in crisis.
But perhaps there is still an opportunity to reflect on Europe: on France, on Franco-German relations, on the EU. After all, judging by Ukraine's struggle for self-determination and security, it is clear that Europe also needs to defend democracy and human rights. Macron seems to be seizing the opportunity to use the remaining three years of his term to make France the leading force in a sovereign European Union.
Article Source:
Jacob Ross，France’s Pivot to Europe，Internationale Politik Quarterly ，Mar 22, 2024
Web Links:
https://ip-quarterly.com/en/frances-pivot-europe
·Translator Introduction ·
Zhang Chen, a master's student at Peking University Law School, is currently a member of the compilation team of the French and Italian view of the world.
END
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