Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Why is Macron’s foreign policy such a mess?

Last Sunday I marched through Paris with tens of thousands of disgruntled Frenchmen and women. I was there to observe, not holler and sing like those around me, a mix of Socialists, Communists and Greens. They had much that they wanted to get off their chest: the cost of living, ‘climate inaction’, the war in Ukraine, the state of the health system and their opposition to social security reform.

On Thursday it was the right who marched in Paris, led by Éric Zemmour, on the streets to voice their anger about the horrific murder of a 12-year-old in Paris. They see it as symptomatic of an immigration system they claim is broken.

Throw in a month-long strike by oil refinery workers that has caused huge queues at petrol stations, and the prospect of further industrial action by rail staff and nuclear plant workers, and it’s evident that France is beset by deep social and economic strife.

None of this would unduly worry Emmanuel Macron who, after all, saw off the gilet jaunes movement four years ago, were it not for the fact that his global credibility also appears to be on the slide.

Macron was scheduled to meet Olaf Scholz in Fontainebleau next Wednesday for the annual Franco-German ministerial council, the first since the new German chancellor replaced Angela Merkel, but it has been pushed back to January. It is reported that there are significant and bitter divisions in energy and defence policies.

Macron is said to be particularly aggrieved after Germany unveiled a €200 billion domestic energy support scheme without consulting him. French noses were also put out of joint in March when Scholz announced that it would modernise its airforce with American F-35 combat aircraft rather than developing the European alternative, the SCAF jet-fighter. The latest row is over the European missile defence shield, which has crystallised tensions between the two nations.

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