What’s Macron playing at? His macho posturing is a danger to us all

Not being a fan of concepts such as male menopause and mid-life crisis, I can nonetheless quite understand the temptation to reach for such explanations in the light of recent sights and statements coming from Paris. What on earth has got into Emmanuel Macron? What sort of game – if it is a game – does he think he is playing?

In the space of two weeks, he has elevated himself to become the West’s chief hawk on relations with Russia (in quite a crowded field). He has single-handedly shattered the two-year show of unity on Ukraine carefully cultivated by Nato and the EU, and now, this smoothest, most urbane, most haughty of recent French presidents, is all over the French and international media in his boxing gear, throwing angry punches with a fighter’s glare. He’s not even facing an election. He was re-elected two years ago and cannot stand again.

Now I have probably had more time for Macron than many observers – in France or abroad. He took a risk in founding a new political movement to campaign for the presidency – and he won on a platform that represented a fresh, modern approach to politics. He had a clearer idea than most of how France needed to reform, even if he could not make it happen.

He set out to restore the dignity of the presidential office after what he saw as its degradation under his predecessor, Francois Hollande – nocturnal visits to his girlfriend by scooter and all that – creating an aura of office is no bad thing, to my mind, in a presidential system.

Abroad, Macron has been an eloquent European, with ideas about what the European Union could become, including his advocacy of so-called “strategic autonomy” – the argument, pre-Ukraine war, that the EU had to stand on its own two feet, in defence. He was also among the last foreign leaders to keep channels to the Russian leader open, and he understood – or at least that is how I see it – that isolating and humiliating Russia’s president Vladimir Putin was likely to make matters even worse.

Clearly, however, by the end of last year, Macron was becoming dissatisfied with how some of – if not all – his approaches were panning out. He opened the new year with a thorough overhaul of his government, which included replacing his prime minister and foreign minister. Both positions had been held by competent, if not very imaginative public servants. Both are now held by young (and incidentally gay) high flyers.

How far the changes in personnel are connected with changes in policy is not immediately apparent. A French president, like his US counterpart, steers foreign and defence policy, so the last word in what has been quite a dramatic turn against Russia must be his. And what a turn it has been.

From extended phone calls to the Kremlin from the Elysee Palace – and those famed pictures of Macron at the other end of Putin’s long, pandemic, table, there would now appear to be no direct contact at all.

When EU ambassadors were invited to the Russian foreign ministry recently, they all agreed not to go. Macron’s boxing poses have been seen by some, maybe not wrongly, as an allusion, and a challenge, to Putin’s bareback riding and other sporting stunts.

“OK, Putin,” he seems to be saying, “if this is the only language you understand, take this, and this, and this!” Shouldn’t heads of state be above such cartoonish posturing? And if it is designed to send a message to the Russian president, is it really in line with Macron’s stress on the dignity of the presidency?

The most serious proof of a French change in policy, however, was Macron’s suggestion that Western boots could, and perhaps should, be on the ground in Ukraine. This shattered what had appeared to be a tacit agreement, in the EU as in Nato, that the West’s help to Ukraine would not go beyond supplying weapons and training.

In particular, there would be no direct involvement of Western troops in any fighting, for obvious reasons: such a move could spur public protest in those countries contributing troops, which could, in turn, negate public support for Ukraine.

There was also the risk that such troops could be seen as a prime target by Russia, and the secondary point that such engagement could seem to support Russian claims that the war in Ukraine had become, even if it was not at the outset, a US and European war against Russia, bringing the threat of a World War Three that much closer.

All of this is true, but it should also be noted that there is a finer line than might appear between boots on the ground, as suggested by Macron, and other forms of military assistance already being provided. The US and UK have had special forces in Ukraine, perhaps from the start, but the convention is that the presence of special forces needs no public acknowledgement and no legislative consent.

The German chancellor let slip, as part of his reason not to send Taurus missiles – because German engineers would be required – that the UK had people performing just such a function with hardware it had supplied. Exactly what constitutes direct participation in someone else’s war and meeting a combatant’s request for supplies of weapons and ammunition is a muddy area of law.

Macron’s talk of sending troops also appears to have been less categorical than it seemed. According to reports in the Ukraine media, he said that this should be considered if Russia tried to seize Kyiv or Odesa. There have been sporadic missile and drone attacks on both cities, but nothing that so far looks like a prelude to the capture of either. So, Macron’s statement can be seen less as a proposal than an attempt to deter Moscow from particular actions.

All the qualifications aside, however, the fact remains that by his very mention of sending Western troops, Macron broke a taboo, which had thus far held for a reason. The only countries that might support sending their own troops are the three Baltic states and Poland, though even their public support might be lacking.

In the rest of the EU, and on the part of a US president campaigning for re-election, support is almost non-existent. The response to Macron’s departure was a series of fierce disclaimers – and with them, ample evidence of differences within the EU and Nato, should Putin want to exploit them.

Among the most horrified were the Germans and chancellor Olaf Scholz, who were already smarting from French criticism of their refusal to supply Taurus missiles. Now exposed, these differences will be hard to smooth over. Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky did his best, thanking Macron, but saying French people could rest assured that there was no need for French troops to die for Ukraine; all Ukrainians wanted was the weapons so they could fight for themselves. But the damage has been done.

This leaves the question of why Macron has taken the position he has. Could the threat of troops be, in fact, just a deterrence ploy, setting new “red lines” for Russia not to cross (Odesa and Kyiv)? Or is it personal? Is Macron perhaps regretting the political capital he risked averting the war in the first place, by maintaining contacts with Putin to a late stage?

Or might he see an EU “coalition of the willing” for Ukraine as a possible start to an autonomous EU military army? A capability that could take on more significance in the event of a second Donald Trump presidency and a possible rolling back of the US presence in Europe?

And what if it is just a reflection of Macron being Macron and wanting to put France on a new European strategy and ethical map? Would that be so bad? Trump showed that unpredictability could be a diplomatic asset – deterrence as keeping adversaries guessing – as well as a drawback.

The difficulty for Macron, though, is that France is not the United States; France is a member, albeit one of the more powerful members, of bigger groupings. There are allies and partners: there was strength in a unified public message that has now been diluted, if not negated.

It is hard not to conclude that by going public in this case, whether by mooting the dispatch of troops or by shows of pugilism in the ring, he has lost more than he has gained.