🇱🇧&🇺🇸 (Paris-based) Editor-in-chief of Strategic Europe, @carnegie_europe after more than a decade on Middle East affairs. Multiple @newsemmys winner.
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Dec 8 • 11 tweets • 2 min read
Short 🧵on Syria:
Under the Assads' 53yr despotic rule generations automatically learned to lower their voice when speaking of the Assads or politics - even abroad.
Children were born inside jails, their mothers, tortured, raped, jailed on political charges w/no due process
1/10
Syria has always been a diverse country, with Jews, Christians, Sunnis, Shias, Alawites, Kurds and others — that should be preserved to a maximum. This will be a real test for the new leadership. A modern just state cannot oppress any part of its population.
2/10
Jun 10 • 16 tweets • 3 min read
By calling snap elex in *3 weeks* Emmanuel Macron is wagering his entire political legacy and it may end up real ugly.
His move cld have dire consequences for France, but also for Europe and... for Ukraine.
A few quick thoughts 🧵 1/14
Turnout yesterday was the highest for a Euro elex since 1994. The trouncing Macron's party suffered was voters rejecting him. He seems to think he can turn that around in 3 weeks. Anything is possible in politics, but looks like a long shot. (more on this further down) 2/14
Apr 25 • 20 tweets • 4 min read
🧵
🔗Text of Macron's speech on Europe, I will only analyse the parts on geopolitics and defense:
1/20
Macron always good at bluntly painting pic of state of world, but his UNGA 2022 and Bratislava + MSC 2023 speeches were more momentous, legacy-building elysee.fr/emmanuel-macro…
2/Overall, he dramatised the global upheaval+urgency for Europe to adjust:"Europe is mortal" but this isn't new, he has been saying a version of this since Trump/Covid/2022. Note: he doesn't explicitly talk abt "power dynamics" though it is the prime feature of this new disorder.
Jul 21, 2023 • 15 tweets • 3 min read
🧵Macron's diplo adviser Emmanuel Bonne's intv at #AspenSecurityForum on 🇺🇦, Russia, China [inclu saying 🇨🇳 sending "kind of military equipment" to 🇷🇺]
A revealing convo w/@jimsciutto in fluent English, quite rare to see Bonne at such a public forum. More wld benefit France 1/15
Bonne (Macron's diplo adviser): What is crucial is that Russia be defeated in UKR, not be tempted to attack other Euro countries... the most basic security guarantees we can give is advanced weaponry... In Vilnius we gave UKR a v.clear perspective abt its NATO membership..." 2/15
1/took 2 personal shots at Putin saying he had tried to lie to him abt Wagner not being tied to the Russian system + "Putin failed to restore what he had promised Russia: its authority in the world"
[admits he'd believed in the relative trust b/w them]
2/ goes further than his initial salvo against Russia's malign activities in Africa when he went to 🇨🇲🇧🇯🇬🇼 Jul22, says Wagner is "an explicit direct diplo-military, neo-mafia intermediary of Russia...we defeated it partially [in UKR] but we must finish off this work" = noteworthy
Sep 20, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
BREAKING NEWS: Emmanuel Macron starts his speech at UNGA with the most pressing issue, no grand intellectual contemplating or literary sentences. He goes straight to the point, denounces Russia's invasion of Ukraine in blunt terms, and the fence-sitters.
The Elysee gave unprecedented access to a journo (who doesnt cover FP/diplomacy). He filmed Macron's calls w/Putin, Scholz, Draghi, BoJo, Grossi, followed Macron's diplo advisers, getting exceedingly rare on-the-record on camera quotes.
A thread on #UnPresidentLEuropeEtLaGuerre
It's a welcome, if very late, change in the Elysee's comms posture. There's no spox or press secretary. Advisers are always anonymously quoted in the press, because they refuse to talk on the record and say they have to be invisible. Glad to see them center stage here.
Jun 19, 2022 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
Chickens came home to roost tonight for E.Macron tho his coalition in 1st place.
Big winner:Le Pen's far right.
French disavowed EM on multiple levels depriving him of absolute majority in parliament, turning conservatives into kingmakers, restoring a *sort of* left/right divide
Macron paid for multiple errors:
-taking left-wing supporters for granted [his kingmakers in '17+'22]
-uninspired, non-substantive pres+legisl campaigns
-fearmongering: him or chaos
-opportunistic pandering to left/right
-inability to build a political party w/clear ideo line
Sep 17, 2021 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
From a high-level FR diplo: TIMELINE OF FR/AUS contacts:
FR-AUS contacts timeline (FR-US timeline below)
Fall 2020/Spring 2021 - discussions with Australians about timing and price - at no point was it raised that Australia was thinking about shifting to nuclear-propelled.
1/5
Feb/Mar 2021 - Naval Group boss spends time in Australia and come back thinking issues were resolved
Mar-Apr 2021 : FR+AUS conclude they had put the strategic partnership back on track
Jan 28, 2021 : Morrison and Macron meet
May 5, 2021 : AUS/FR FM on margins of G7
2/5
Jun 13, 2021 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Terrible org at #G7 in Cornwall.
Journalists have been parked an hour’s drive away from where leaders are meeting.
Almost like everything was designed to keep journalists as far as possible - which is the opposite of democratic. Not a good look for the mtg of wealthy democracies.
At the last in-person G7, hosted by France in Biarritz, journos were across the street from leaders. We shouted questions from balcony, had many opportunities to run into leaders and for impromptu press huddles. That was democratic.
Jun 12, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
More detailed Elysee readout of Macron/Biden bilat:
"The two had a good, dense, deep conversation on their respective experiences in int'l crises to better act together, as partners in a serene way moving forward."
[interesting 1st line - the Trump years left a mark]
Per Elysee, Macron, Biden agree on ambition/target goal and how to achieve it when it comes to pandemic mgmt. Agreed on need to both work toward an early alert mechanism and to quickly reform the WHO to prevent future pandemics.
Jun 10, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Macron on Euro sovereignty - spoiler, he sounds more assertive abt Europe having its own path. Enumerates all the was Europe has grown [recovery fund, tech, joint defense projects...]
"for me the 1st objective is that our partners recognise this new European reality"
Macron: "build a new partnership with the US...delighted by the return of the US in the concert of nations and cooperative multilateralism. For me the key is that the Euros remain united and pay attention to their common sovereignty and that we can have our own path"
Feb 27, 2020 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
If you're scandalised by Turkey's threat to let Syrian refugees get to Europe, ask yourself why you're ok with:
-these refugees freezing to death at the Turkish border?
-Europe's wilful impotence in such a conflict at its border.
-leaving Turkey holding the baby? #Idlib
Agree or disagree with Erdogan's methods, it is the Assad regime and Russia that broke the agreed ceasefire. And that have been steadily escalating against Turkish soldiers. Not the other way around.
1/ Why did Iran militarily escalate in the Gulf lately? Shooting down a US drone, seizing tankers, bombing Saudi oil infrastructure? It wanted to internationalise the conflict. The Strait of Hormuz is where most of the world's shipping transits. The US chose not to go there.
2/ US also held its own line: a US person killed meant retaliation. It targeted the militia that did the attack. It was reciprocal, but also punitive to send a message. Iran-backed militia escalated against US embassy. US managed the attack, didn't blow everything up. #Soleimani
Jul 8, 2019 • 23 tweets • 10 min read
Sustained French diplomacy on Iran JCPoA to de-escalate
Macron:
-discussed with Trump on D-Day + Jul1 call and today
-spoke to Rouhani Jun 25+Jul6
His diplo adviser Emmanuel Bonne was in Iran June 19, going back tmrw, Wednesday
+ministerial and E3 contacts
Next deadline: July 15
Bonne reportedly to meet Shamkhani in Tehran. #JCPoA#France#Iran
