A week ago President Emmanuel Macron faced the prospect of 30 months, or half of his second term, as a political spectator.
His approval rating had sunk to 21 percent, his lowest ever. He presided over cabinet meetings but he said little. He was the master of ceremonies rather than master of the universe. Michel Barnier, 27 years his senior, was the new boss.
Now, with one bound, our hero is free. Or at least he has found a new purpose. He has a chance to make a success of his political career after all.
Macron sounded like a new man – or a new version of an old Macron – in his 30-minute speech to the 47-nation European Political Community in Budapest last Thursday.
The second coming of Donald Trump is a “decisive moment in the history of Europe,” Macron said. “The fundamental question we now face is whether we want our history to be written by others: Vladimir Putin’s invasions; American elections; Chinese technological and commercial decisions.”
“I believe that we are strong enough to write history for ourselves.”
As the Huff’post wittily pointed out, Macron has found a “Trumplin” on which he can leap back to relevance. Macron’s European doctrine has proved to be urgent and relevant, not abstract and idealistic.
Trump’s threats to weaken Nato and place 10 percent tariffs on all EU exports may appear grotesque but they are an exaggeration, or acceleration, of what Macron has been warning about for seven years.
Europe’s future prosperity and its cultural and political independence cannot be sub-let to China or the US. Neither will take decisions with Europeans’ best interests in mind.
Macron’s arguments for “European sovereignty” or “strategic autonomy” are, in theory, shared by other EU governments.
He is the only European leader to spell out persistently the choices that are needed. More European military spending as part of a stronger European defence policy within the Nato alliance; protection of the European strategic and green industries of the future; massive EU investment in research and development; common action on climate change.
An obvious problem arises. Macron may have copyright on the ideas but he no longer has the credibility or the power that he had in 2017. He has lost his majority in the National Assembly. He has undermined his own European reputation by failing to respect his promises to reduce the French budget deficit to meet EU rules.
Under his presidency, the Franco-German alliance which has been the spine of the European Union for 66 years has become severely dislocated. This may be partly or mostly Germany’s fault but there is something about Macron’s wordy self-confidence which irritates German politicians.
This is true, or maybe especially true, when he is right.
The collapse of the German coalition government last week will freeze the present state of Franco-German disagreement for several months – up to the February elections and then through many weeks of coalition building. There is some hope that after that, Macron will get on better with the likely, new centre-right Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, than he does with the taciturn Social Democrat Olaf Scholz.
But even if the Franco-German shepherds start to work together again, the EU-27 will not be herded easily. The east European countries are welded to the idea of the US security guarantee. Neither Donald Trump nor Emmanuel Macron will dislodge them easily.
Giorgia Meloni in Italy sees immigration as a greater threat than loss of economic or cultural sovereignty, Viktor Urban in Hungary believes somehow that Vladimir Putin and Donad Trump are Europe’s best friends.
When Trump starts his trade war with Europe, will the Europeans scatter and try to make separate deals? If he tries to impose a humiliating and dangerous peace on Ukraine, will all the Europeans (apart from Orban, Putin’s toady) agree to increase their own support for Kyiv?
Macron has some residual credibility from his past speeches and warnings but that will not take him very far. He needs to be less sweeping in his rhetoric and more realistic about what can be achieved.
He must not repeat his previous attempts to woo Trump as he also tried to woo Putin and President Xi Jinping of China. His reward was to become a standard part of Trump’s campaign speech as a largely fictitious, feeble European leader called “President Macrone” (rhyming with groan).
Macron’s speech to the European Political Community last week was a good start. (What is the EPC? It is Macron’s successful idea for a a wider European negotiating body than the EU.)
In Budapest, he resisted the temptation to tell the other European leaders: “I told you so.” His language was practical rather than visionary. “In a world of carnivores”, he said, there was no acceptable future for Europe as a game park for “herbivores”.
Reports from inside the Elysée Palace suggest that Macron fell into an emotional slump after he was obliged to install Barnier as a free-standing Prime Minister in September. He lost his energy and his interest in domestic politics. Something similar happened to him between the Presidential and legislative elections in 2022.
At the very least Donald Trump’s victory has jolted him out of his lethargy. Macron had no idea what he was going to do with the next two and a half years. Now, he does.
That is no guarantee of success. He may be no more successful in selling his French ideas to Europe than he has been capable of preaching Europe to the French.
It is going to be a scary couple of years. We need Macron’s new-found sense of European purpose to be more than just occupational therapy for an out-of-work President.
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