Last week I compared Macron’s statement on the potential deployment of troops to Ukraine to previous comments on NATO or Taiwan. Yet the comparison may have been unfair.
In those other instances, Macron had to backtrack to some extent and officials had to carefully re-explain and describe what the President had ‘really meant’. We were given to understand that these were offhand statements that had gone a bit too far, slip-ups to be corrected.
However, there is little to suggest that, when Macron refused to rule out the possibility of soldiers going into Ukraine, he was speaking out of turn or got caught up in the moment. On the contrary, the follow-up has been more than consistent across a range of interviews and announcements.
Far from being put off by the negative reactions of some partners, like Germany, Italy or Spain, Macron continued to double down. During a press conference in Prague, where he was visiting to confirm France’s participation in the Czech-led plan to buy more ammunition for Ukraine, Macron warned against being ‘cowardly’. In obviously prepared comments he pushed Europeans to really ask themselves whether the defence of Ukraine is ‘our war’ or not, arguing that turning away from the conflict was not a solution. In response to accusations of escalation, he retorted that Putin is the one who launched the war and who constantly threatens the use of nuclear weapons, that Europe is up against someone who applies no limits on themselves.
Macron’s comms team then clipped those words to rebroadcast them, along with English subtitles, through the President’s Twitter account.
That same evening, the French Foreign Minister gave an interview on French TV where he argued that we couldn’t risk ‘stepping aside in the face of expansionist powers’. Moreover, he noted that the peace reached in 1938, when Czechoslovakia was sold out to try and appease Hitler, proved to be short-lived and only led to further aggression later. It’s a comparison to the failed policies of appeasement that the party’s lead candidate for the European elections raised in her own confirmation speech.
Meanwhile, Macron also held a closed-doors meeting with the leaders of France’s parliamentary parties to discuss the French position on Ukraine. Participants (mainly critics) confirmed that Macron declared that there were ‘no limits, no red lines’ in France’s support for Kyiv.
Almost immediately afterwards, Macron then met with the Moldovan Prime Minister, who had come to Paris to confirm a new defence pact between the two countries.
To top it off, by the end of the week three French defence companies were reportedly preparing partnerships with Ukrainian firms to produce more drones and ammunition.
The whole sequence was perhaps best summarised by a Latvian diplomat, who, following a meeting of the French, Ukrainian and Baltic Foreign Ministers, tweeted that he had never heard France sound so much like a Baltic country.
Whatever one might think of France’s new position, it seems highly unlikely that this is anything other than a pre-planned reorientation of the official line from Paris, adopting a much harder line on Putin and clearer support for a Ukrainian victory.
Of course, even if the new approach is deliberate, there can still be questions over how credible it is.
Already some have speculated that this is mostly for show. The European Parliament elections are approaching and pushing the war in Ukraine to the front of the public discourse is a good way to draw a dividing line with the far-right and far-left. Both groups have historically supported strong ties with Moscow and showed little desire to give any consideration to Ukraine when Russia first seized territory in 2014. Macron, whose party is stuck firmly in second place, way behind Le Pen’s Rassemblement National, could be betting that turning the upcoming vote into a ‘Ukraine election’ will turn his fortunes around.
That said, more than one thing can be true at the same time. The new thinking on Russia and Ukraine in Paris could be both sincere and electorally convenient.
Real confirmation over how much France is willing to commit to Ukraine will only come over the following months as we watch to see if there is a material change off the back of the rhetoric.
What could this look like? One obvious route would be a simple increase in the amount of military equipment that France sends to Ukraine. It’s notable that, after long ignoring criticism of its low official commitments on the basis of secrecy and national security, the French government recently made public a list of nearly all the materiel it has sent to Kyiv. This change perhaps reflects a new sensitivity to the issue and a desire to show the world what France is doing to help Ukraine win. There is some limited evidence that this is matched by real actions: in January France put in orders for more of the truck-mounted ‘Caesar’ artillery and last week announced it was buying more high-end kamikaze drones to be handed over to the Ukrainian forces.
Alternatively, France may put more weight on the nature of its assistance, focusing less on bulk orders of ammunition, for example, but doing more on the most advanced equipment. For example, the French Armed Forces Minister recently confirmed that they had ordered over 200 more Aster anti-air missiles, an unknown number of which will be given to Ukraine. Given German reluctance on sending Taurus missiles to Kyiv, it will be interesting to watch whether France will decide to go further on providing long-rang weapons.
Finally, it will be important to see whether Paris eases off on its insistence that EU funds should only go towards EU-based defence companies. While work has been ongoing on the creation of a Ukraine Assistance Fund to acquire more military equipment for Ukraine, France has been holding out and insisting on a ‘buy European’ clause. This demand, which has some merits for the medium and long term, could be adjusted by focusing only on those sectors where European industry actually has enough capacity or by phasing in the requirement more broadly. So long as pragmatism takes precedence over principle, it could demonstrate that Paris really means it when they say the situation in Ukraine is urgent.
It's too early to categorise France has a Russia hawk in the same vein as Poland or Estonia but at the very least Paris values cordial relations with Moscow much less than it used to. Recent events have demonstrated a shift that is both deliberate and, for now, promising.