Ihe reactions to Emmanuel Macron’s trips to China and the Netherlands are hardly surprising. They even seem desired by the President of the Republic, who likes to cause such a stir in the media.
These two state visits targeted both diplomatic circles and French public opinion. Emmanuel Macron directly linked internal and external issues through the “European sovereignty”, destined to become the hallmark of his dual mandate. In Beijing, he presented it as ” twin “ of “French Independence”. In The Hague he said: “I have decided to place this term at the center of my political project. » Of which act. But, what do the interested parties think?
As far as our European partners are concerned, they know perfectly well that Paris likes to play its role as a troublemaker in the West. It will all pass, they tell themselves. On the other hand, they are reluctant to grant it a “special diet” because of his military status. Even if they became aware of American versatility during the Trump presidency, almost all Europeans can only conceive of their defense within the framework of NATO. Nuclear deterrence sets France apart in this regard.
For China, European sovereignty must be encouraged from the moment it strains transatlantic relations. For Russia, it no longer makes sense insofar as the Kremlin considers itself at war with “the collective West”. Within the “Global South”, there are expectations with regard to a Europe that would make it possible to escape the pitfalls of Sino-American rivalry, and to develop partnership logics freed from any political conditionality. As for the United States, the level of military support given to Ukraine shows the Europeans the distance they still have to travel to succeed, one day, in being able to ensure the security of their neighborhood.
Economic downgrading
For the French, it is clear that the argument that pension reform contributes to the credibility of their country with regard to its partners is not convincing. Part of the public struggles to see that France’s downgrading is less diplomatic than economic: since 1975, the country has gone from 5e at 26e world rank for gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, as Jacques de Larosière reminds us. Added to this is a public debt which represents 112% of GDP.
A majority of French people do not intend to question their generous redistributive system. It intends even less to make efforts justified by the war in Ukraine, and more broadly by the decline of Europe in the competition of powers. But Emmanuel Macron also associated the “European sovereignty” To “war economy” in its various interventions in the Netherlands. Only the debt level – around 3,000 billion euros – corresponds to this situation, except that it was reached to finance current expenditure. This obviously weakens the position of France.
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