In meeting with Putin, Macron distances France from Washington’s anti-Russia policy
By
Alex Lantier
30 May 2017
Yesterday afternoon, newly-elected French President Emmanuel Macron greeted Russian President Vladimir Putin at the former royal palace of Versailles. Amid explosive conflicts that have led the European powers and Washington to the brink of a direct military conflict with Russia in Syria and then in Ukraine and Eastern Europe, Macron signaled a broad shift in France’s foreign policy.
The Versailles conference took place just after an extraordinary press conference by German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Munich, where she said that Europe could no longer rely on either Washington or London. “We Europeans must really take our destiny into our own hands,” she said. “Of course, we need to have friendly relations with the US and with the UK and with our other neighbors, including Russia,” she added, explaining that now “we have to fight for our own future ourselves.”
Merkel’s statements provoked from Richard Haass, the president of the influential US Council on Foreign Relations, the dismayed comment that the events of the past week represented a “watershed” that “the US has sought to avoid” since World War II. Yesterday’s conference in Versailles confirmed that, in its broadest outline, French foreign policy under Macron is following the path laid out by Germany, the hegemonic power inside the European Union (EU)—a path that, while highly bellicose, is increasingly independent and opposed to that of Washington.
While advancing an aggressive imperialist policy in the Syrian and Ukrainian crises, Macron distanced himself from US policy towards Russia. While Washington has repeatedly risked an all-out military clash with Russia, a major…