When Theresa May invited Donald Trump to London, shortly after his inauguration, the howls of the bien-pensant commentariat could be heard from Islington to Brighton. Yet when Emmanuel Macron invited the American president to Paris to stand by his side on Bastille Day, there was barely a peep.
How to explain this? Sophie Pedder, Paris editor of the Macron-infatuated Economist, was quick off the mark. Macron, she announced, had extended his invitation to Trump from a position of strength and credibility. ‘May has neither.’
The Elysée press office could not have expressed it more viciously. Yet this conveniently overlooks that May’s invitation was issued before the general election, when May hardly seemed weak nor incredible, while Macron’s invitation served no purpose other than to glorify Macron himself, who revelled in every moment of the celebrations.
In his thus-far brief presidency, Macron has shown himself obsessed with symbolism and the accumulation of total power.
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