Macron wants to lead Europe on Ukraine, but France may not let him

PARIS — There’s no doubt President Emmanuel Macron wants to take on a mantle of global leadership and reverse faltering Western support for Ukraine, but French politics will make that a hard role for him to pull off.

As Ukrainian forces are pushed back on the battlefield and uncertainty persists over Western military aid, Macron has made a combative pitch to turn the tide, telling reporters that “Europe is at stake.” On Monday he promised a fresh push for artillery shells, floated the idea of western boots on the ground, and announced a new coalition on long-range missiles.

Macron is clearly styling himself as a statesman who can step into the breach in the mold of Italy’s Mario Draghi, who famously steadied the crisis-stricken eurozone with his pledge to do “whatever it takes.” Indeed, Macron echoed that very phrase on Monday: “We’re determined to do whatever it takes for as long as it takes.”

The question, then, is: How far is Macron truly ready to go this time? His previous lofty rhetoric on Ukraine, after all, has not been matched by action. Most significantly, can he hope to prevail as a galvanizing Western leader if he fails to carry France with him?

All French opposition forces have already rounded on him. Marine Le Pen, on the far right, has pilloried his assertion that Western troops in Ukraine “shouldn’t be ruled out” as toying with “the lives of [France’s] children,” while far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon said it was “madness” to pitch “one nuclear power against another nuclear power.” More mainstream forces, such as the Socialist Party and the conservative Les Républicains, also condemned the French president’s muscle-flexing.

Those are arguments that resonate strongly with voters in France — at a time when Macron’s centrist liberal party is polling far beneath the far left and far right ahead of June’s European election.

On news channels on Tuesday the talking points were about whether France should prepare itself for a war with Russia. And the answers were broadly: “No.”

“I really don’t understand why he said that, it can be seen as quite a dangerous, worrying idea, sending troops for the French. Especially if we don’t have any agreement within the EU,” said OpinionWay pollster Bruno Jeanbart.

For Jeanbart, Macron’s statement was more about “sending a message to diplomatic partners” after facing criticism for “his proximity” to Russia’s Vladimir Putin at the start of the war.

The Ukrainians, however, are fed up with diplomatic messages from Macron and would prefer weapons — an area where Paris, instead of leading, lags far behind the U.S., Germany, Britain and Poland.

Macron’s Zeitenwende

Germany’s defining moment at the beginning of the war was a Zeitenwende — a historical turning point — in which Berlin vowed to revamp its long-forsaken military to face the real danger from Russia.

The French president has been under pressure to match words with action on Ukraine since announcing his own personal Zeitenwende on Ukraine support during a speech in Bratislava last June. There, he apologized for not heeding Central and Eastern Europeans on the Russian threat.

French President Emmanuel Macron delivers a speech at the GLOBSEC regional security forum in Bratislava, Slovakia, on May 31, 2023 | Michal Cizek/AFP via Getty Images

But with Ukraine running out of ammunition and France’s own lesser donations to Kyiv under fresh scrutiny, Macron’s promises were starting to look empty. His intervention on Monday was meant to rectify that impression, and his pledge to take part in a Czech initiative to buy shells from providers outside the EU, departing from France’s “Buy European” mantra, signals a major shift.

Macron’s greatest challenge, though, is that his ambition appears out of sync with the prevailing French mood on Ukraine.

For the French, the war is not the great civilizational clash for Europe’s democracy and freedom that it is to countries that still have bitter memories of Russia’s murderous rule.

“Russia is not seen as a direct threat to France, and the war is seen as a former USSR consideration,” Jeanbart said. That’s in stark contrast to Poland, the Baltic nations and even Germany and the Nordic countries, for whom the danger is more imminent.

Recent polling figures show a lukewarm — and rapidly cooling — sympathy for Ukraine in France. While 58 percent of the French have a positive impression of Ukraine, that’s down 24 points from the outbreak of the war, according to figures from polling institute IFOP. Only 50 percent support arming Ukraine — to say nothing of fighting for it — down 15 points from the early days of the fighting in 2022.

Furthermore, only 62 percent of the French support sanctions against Russia, compared to 72 percent at the beginning of the war.

France’s influential and increasingly obstreperous farmers are another major political headache for Macron. Cheap Ukrainian poultry and cereals have become one of the focal points of their rage, and their leaders are pressing Macron to restrict imports.

In a reflection of the lack of sympathy for Ukraine, Damien Radet, a regional representative for France’s top farmers’ union, told POLITICO at the end of last month that massive food inflows would have to be stopped as Ukraine was “not a European country” and “has nothing to do with our history.”

That’s a hard constituency for Macron to win round with his talk of Europe being at stake.

Already, Macron’s hint of western forces trudging round Ukraine and talk of grand coalitions to secure long-range missiles have started to ring hollow.

On Tuesday, French officials and politicians tried to recast what he said in the face of pushback from European leaders including Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. The plan “is not to send French or European troops to fight against Russia, but to contribute to deterrence,” said French lawmaker Benjamin Haddad, who belongs to Macron’s Renaissance party.

France’s Foreign Minister Stéphane Séjourné also appeared to downplay Macron’s words, saying that new signs of support may involve a western presence in Ukraine, such as demining or arms production. “Some of these actions would necessitate a presence on Ukrainian territory without crossing the threshold of belligerence,” Séjourné said.

French Foreign Minister Stéphane Séjourné leaves after addressing the UN General Assembly meeting on February 23 | Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images

The credibility gap

The risk for Macron is that he will been seen as making another rhetorical reset, and of politicking on the back of Ukraine — a point raised by veteran French columnist Pierre Haski. 

After a barrage of criticism from the left and the right, Macron is now trying to turn the tables on the opposition, with a debate and a vote on a security deal struck with Ukraine. Such a move would force Le Pen’s National Rally to position itself on Ukraine just as the French government is trying to cast the far right as proxies for the Kremlin.

French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal on Tuesday crossed swords with the National Rally during questions in the National Assembly, hinting at “its real loyalties.”

“When we read the Washington Post’s investigation [on Russian infiltration of the French far right], we ask ourselves whether Putin’s troops are not already in our country,” he said.

Ultimately, as foreign policy analyst Ulrich Speck notes, Macron’s allusions to boots on the ground, or “strategic ambiguity” as the president called it, must be credible.

As Speck wrote on X: “Credibility comes with the steady massive military support for Ukraine, which France hasn’t provided in the last two years.”

Victor Goury-Laffont contributed reporting