Thread by @Mij_Europe

On Ukraine, @EmmanuelMacron has made a spectacular two-year journey from apparent dove to leading hawk. Why? French officials say the facts have changed and Macron has changed with them. Is that a full explanation? A VERY LONG historical thread... 1/

Since Feb 2022 the French President has evolved from would-be Putin intermediary to implacable Putin foe. From “Don’t humiliate Russia” (May/June 2022), he has shifted to “Russia must be defeated” (June 2023) & now “Don’t exclude sending western ground forces” (February 2024). 2/

The Elysée Palace insists that Macron has been consistent - in context. Here is an attempt to retrace his journey with my thoughts on how Macron’s thinking at each stage has changed and why. 3/

7 Feb, 22: Macron flew to Moscow for his celebrated “long-table talks”, offering Putin “security guarantees” if Russia refrained from invading Ukraine. Putin promised not to invade but spoke interminably on why Ukraine had no historical right to exist. 4/

theguardian.com/world/2022/feb…

20 February, 2022: In a telephone conversation with Putin, Macron thought he had persuaded the Russian leader to consider peace talks with President @JoeBiden. Putin ended the call by saying he wanted to go and play ice-hockey.  Russia then reneged on the Biden talks. 5/

24 February 2022: Russia invaded Ukraine. Critics say there was never a chance of Macron stopping Putin; the talks were all about Macron’s vanity. Macron believes to this day that the talks were justified. Otherwise, the Kremlin would have said the West “wanted war”.  6/

May 9, 2022:  Macron told the @Europarl_EN that the West should not seek to “humiliate” Russia – provoking fury in Ukraine, Poland and the Baltic states. Evidence had just emerged of Russian war crimes in Boutcha and elsewhere. Macron’s comment were, at the least, clumsy. 7/

In the same speech, Macron first called for the creation of a wider European Political Community of EU and non EU-states – which has turned out to be a rather successful initiative. 8/

lemonde.fr/en/france/arti…

June 4, 2022: Macron repeated himself in an interview with the French regional press. “We should avoid humiliating Russia so that, when fighting ends, we can create an exit route by diplomatic means,” he said. 9/

What was in Macron’s mind? Russia seemed to be losing the war.  Macron believed that he could broker a deal which would preserve Kyiv’s interests & create a new security “architecture” which would advance his belief in a “strategic Europe”, less dependent militarily on the US 10/

That illusion soon faded. In a series of chaotic phone calls in the following weeks, Macron grasped that the Russian leader was lying/stringing him along. Their last call – on the safety of the Zaporizhzia nuclear plant – occurred in September 2022 11/

A former minister told Le Monde that Macron went through a period of “radicalisation by disappointment” in his calls with Putin. The Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky said in a French media interview: “It took some time but Emmanuel realised that Putin had duped him.” 12/

In the months that followed, as Ukraine prepared its counter-attack, Macron’s attitude to Moscow hardened and his strategic focus shifted. He realised that there could be no progress on a “strategic Europe” without the support of eastern EU countries. 13/

Successive French Govt's have had feeble relations with eastern Europe, starting with reluctance of Paris to accept rapid eastern enlargement after the collapse of the Warsaw Pact. Macron’s attempts at direct diplomacy in 2022 had especially angered the Poles & Baltic states 14/

Ex-Warsaw Pact states have also been amongst the most suspicious about the EU’s ability to replace the US as the guarantor of European security. Macron decided he must reach out to the east. Germany was proving to be a reluctant “strategic European”. He needed new allies. 15/

1 June 2023: at the Globsec security conference in Bratslava on 1 June 2023, Macron called for the “|defeat of Russia” for the first time. Previously, he had spoken only of “preventing a Russian victory”. 16/

At Globsec Macron also apologised to eastern Europe for “missing an opportunity” to listen to them about Russia’s imperial ambitions. This was reference to Jacques Chirac’s remark in 2003 that E. Europeans had “lost an opportunity to shut up” by supporting US in 2nd Iraq war 17/

Also at Globsec, Macron opened the door to possible Ukrainian membership of a revitalsed @NATO.  He argued that America’s long-term reluctance to defend Europe made a European defence pillar WITHIN NATO vital to eastern Europe. 18/

French officials point out that these remarks were made against the background of cautious optimism that Ukraine could regain ground in its counter-offensive last summer. It didn’t; the outlook has since darkened. 19/

Macron has since grown anxious that - far from creating an opportunity to advance democracy and the EU -  the Ukrainian war may end in a  Russian victory which would discredit the EU and destroy its economy. 20/

The French President has been talking in private for several months about a possible need to deploy French and other Nato troops to Ukraine. He first asked the French military to consider its options last September. 21/

At a private meeting in the Elysée on 21 February, Macron astonished visitors by saying “In any case, I’m going to have to send guys (ie troops) to Odessa before the end of the year.”  22/

On 26 February, after a Ukraine military donors’ conference at the Elysée, Macron said in reply to a journalist’s question about possible western troop deployment: “nothing  should be ruled out…  Russia cannot (be allowed to) win this war”. 23/

lemonde.fr/en/internation…

Cue instant rebuttals by the US, Germany and the UK and allegations that Macron, by grand-standing, was helping Moscow by exposing divisions in the West. 24/

What did Macron actually mean? French ministers have since said he meant only support troops not front-line fighters. Macron has refused to make that distinction. He said last weekend that he would not “initiate” such an escalation but that it might become necessary. 25/

Officially, Macron is trying to create “strategic ambiguity” - ie to keep Russia guessing. Unofficially, he is said to want to prepare French and western opinion for tough decisions that may lie ahead. 26/

What could France do anyway? The head of French ground forces says that it could deploy 20,000 troops to Ukraine within  a month. (Other reports suggest three months). 27/

There has been French media speculation that, if Russian breaks through Ukrainian lines, France might deploy a “blocking force” to protect Odessa and Moldova. Reality? Or strategic ambiguity? 28/

Macron is driven by a triple anxiety or fear.  The Ukrainian front-line may buckle;  US support for Ukraine, already suspended by Congress, will end if Donald Trump is re-elected in November; the west is sleep-walking towards a calamitous defeat. 29/

The Fr President is sometimes accused of wanting to seize the “leadership|” of the European Union. Senior Elysée sources say that, with just three years remaining in office, Macron does not think so much about “leadership” as “legacy”.  29/

In 2017, he promised to leave both France and the EU stronger than he found them. Seven years later, he faces a rising tide of far right and nationalist support in Europe and France and the possibility that a Russian victory in Ukraine could destroy the credibility of the EU 30/

Macron believes that Chancellor @Bundeskanzler has failed to adjust to the seriousness of the situation. He is frustrated by German unwillingness to face up to a new world in which cheap Russian energy and endless US military protection are no longer assured 31/

@Bundeskanzler In longer term Macron knows any serious European defence pillar within Nato needs enthusiastic backing of Germany – & UK. In the short term, he is delighted that his  “boots on the ground” initiative has been greeted with enthusiasm in Balts, Poland, Czech Republic & Finland 32/

@Bundeskanzler In sum… His “boots on the ground” remarks on 26 February were an attempt to force a debate the limits on western support for Kyiv. It was also – like much of his thinking from the beginning of the war - an attempt to force European countries to confront their own destiny.  33/

@Bundeskanzler His previous initiatives – talks with Putin; don’t humilliate Russia – failed. Will “boots on the ground” also prove to be a blunder? Or help to create Macron’s European legacy?

ENDS

@Bundeskanzler NB on Tweet 22, the @Elysee denies Macron ever said this