In the 17th century, Richelieu made a mockery of Europe’s spiritual bedrock, Christianity, and its universal concept of the Ecclesia that was calling its members out of national paganism. Instead, he proposed a Christian empire led by a particular nation appointed for world mastery, namely France. For the better part of the ensuing two centuries, culminating in the reign of Napoleon Bonaparte, it became a going proposition that the equivalent of divine providence could only be achieved through the nation of France.
France has always perceived itself as La Grande Nation, despite an increasing irrelevance on the world stage. Even though America twice saved the country from demise during the last century, the delusion of sorts has lived on by labelling France as part of the victorious allied forces. When the European Union was formed, Francois Mitterrand managed to relieve Helmut Kohl of the key German virtue, its Deutschmark and the Bundesbank’s monetary policy, in a renewed bid to rule Europe through France.
The dream has lived on, and we did get another dose of it on the weekend. Emmanuel Macron really did it at the G7 summit and managed to outshine the rest of the pack. To be sure, he was the host and the limelight was naturally on him. But equally, he demonstrated brilliant stewardship of the event, bringing to the fore a degree of unity and positive spirit that many had been missing in the past few years. Even avoiding to issue a joint communique was seen as a smart move.
Given how far off America has drifted on many issues it simply didn’t make sense to aggravate Donald Trump by trying to force him into signing a communique. It was a no-go, to begin with. And so, leaders had the chance to express their discomfort with the US-China trade war, for example, in private and without putting anything on paper, whereas the overriding official summit agenda was quickly moved to climate change and Brazil’s Amazon fires. But the real French coups were landed elsewhere.
As both a testament of his abilities as a world leader and a sparkle of that grande nation with providential purpose, Macron managed to bridge the divide between Washington and Tehran by inviting Iran’s foreign minister Javad Zarif to the summit. Not only was Zarif clearly sitting at the table in lieu of the Iranian leadership, but Macron also announced a roadmap that is directed at a meeting of Trump and Hassan Rouhani, possibly at the UN General Assembly mid-September, and ideally a de-escalation of the standoff.
He didn’t stop there. Macron announced that a Normandy format summit between France, Germany, Russia, and Ukraine to take place which would address the situation in Ukraine. It is interesting here that, while Trump has openly been pushing to bring Russia back into the G8 and on the weekend mused to invite Vladimir Putin to next year’s summit in Mar-a-Lago, Macron’s position is to find a solution to the Ukraine question beforehand, which all in all would be tremendous progress for all parties involved.
The formulation of Germany and France organising the Normandy summit was nothing less than maculature, however. Berlin’s government is pretty much paralysed ahead of the important state elections on September 1 and fragile, to say the least. Angela Merkel as Germany’s leader is practically history. There shouldn’t be any doubt that Macron is driving this single-handedly. Why else would Putin have visited France and not Germany just before the G7 to discuss the details of Normandy?
And it was Macron again at his speech during the annual French ambassadors’ conference the day after the G7 weekend, when he called on the EU to redefine its relationship with the Kremlin. It would be a deep strategy error to push Russia further away and into the arms of China. Apart from the previous blabber that hasn’t led to anything it was the first time that a European leader has pointedly and seriously spoken out about ending the spat with Russia while seemingly having Washington on board.
Let’s make no mistake here. This is not about having Putin join the next summit and do a dance at Mar-a-Lago. This might very well be the beginning of a reset of global alignments, with Europe right at the center of things and asserting itself as an independent player to reckon with. And guess what, all this is happening under the diplomatic leadership of Emmanuel Macron and France. History may not repeat itself but it possible rhyme with the French grandeur of the 17th century.
Apart from keeping the French dream of divine providence alive, someone if not Trump must have listened to Henry Kissinger who has long advised against a two-way containment strategy against Russia and China and argued that one cannot be fought without pacifying the other, as I pointed out in a recent
post. If Macron pulls this off and brings Russia back into the fold, the Western alliance would be re-strengthened, and it would certainly be to the chagrin of China.
