Transcript 0:00 [upbeat music] Hello, and welcome to Trendlines, a podcast on international affairs by World Politics Review. My name is Peter Durrie. 0:16 On Sunday, France will go to the polls. 0:19 In all likelihood, the result will be a revival of the 2017 contest with incumbent President Emmanuel Macron and far-right candidate Marine Le Pen getting enough votes to face each other in a runoff later this month, a runoff that Macron is likely to win, although probably with a smaller margin than in 2017. 0:39 During his tenure, Macron has repeatedly tried to stake out ambitious foreign policy positions. 0:44 He has articulated an expansive vision of increasing European integration and has positioned himself as a staunch opponent of concessions to the UK in the wake of Brexit. 0:53 Russia's invasion of Ukraine allowed Macron to escape national politics and the dominance of far-right presidential candidates in the national political discourse. 1:03 To discuss Macron's track record, his domestic situation going into the polls on Sunday, and his likely agenda for a possible second term, I am now joined by Celia Belin. 1:13 Celia is a visiting fellow at the Brookings Center on the United States and Europe, and a former advisor on US affairs and transatlantic relations in the foreign ministry's Centre d'Analyse, de Prévision et de Stratégie. 1:25 Celia, welcome to Trendlines. Thank you very much. Thank you for having me. Pleasure. So looking ahead to the elections on Sunday, how would you describe the situation that President Macron is finding himself in? 1:40 And from your point of view, what will be the likely outcome? 1:44 So as you said, we are very close to the first round of this presidential election, and s- this has been an very interesting campaign in the sense that it's been largely un- under the surface for the longest time, and largely, uh, hidden from the large public, in particular because of the prevalence of major crises the French have faced and the rest of the world has faced, namely the pandemic, the COVID-19 pandemic, and its, uh, fallout that lasted because of the Omicron wave very, very far, including into 2022, and obviously for the past month and a half, the tragic war in Ukraine. 2:30 For these reasons, the, the campaign has been under the radar, and President, uh, Macron, candidate to his own re-election, 2:40 did not launch before just, you know, at the beginning of March, so a little bit more than four weeks, uh, before the first round, launched his re-election campaign and has barely campaigned ever since. 2:55 He has done one political rally, which has had tens of thousands of people, but it's just the one rally, and he has traveled a bit on the ground meeting a few voters, but really nothing compared to a massive effort for his own re-election. 3:11 And the reason is because he's extremely busy because the, the, of the gravity of what's happening, and also potentially some overconfidence out of his camp that this election was on track for him to, to be re-elected quite easily. 3:29 Indeed, in the first round of the election, Emmanuel Macron still dominates the pack very much. The latest polls is still at 28%, and the, the next person over is, uh, Marine Le Pen at 21.5%. 3:45 Everybody else is, is far behind. And Marine Le Pen from the far-right National Rally, uh, Party is likely to face Emmanuel Macron in the second round of this election. 3:59 The novelty is that there's a general negative trend for Emmanuel Macron in the second round in particular, where he lacks the momentum that he had in 2017 in facing Marine Le Pen, and he, um, he struggles more in polls at this point in getting 4:20 people who voted for someone else, neither Macron or Le Pen, to vote for him in the, in the second round. 4:27 So he's still ahead, and he, he's polling at, uh, 53.5% at the moment, but it's much, much lower than his final score of 20, uh, 17 when he managed to get 64% of the vote and, and really sort of defeated in a large manner Marine Le Pen. 4:47 This year appears to be much more tricky. So what, what is the reason for this change in, in ele- in, in feelings about Macron on part of the electorate? 4:58 Is it, is it something that changed about how the public views Macron himself, or is it some- uh, was, was Marine, was Marine Le Pen able to change her image in the French public, given that we have basically the exact same match up now that we have, uh, had five years ago and we are in a situation with the war in Ukraine where you would assume, um, that the commander-in-chief and, or the president in, in, in France would benefit from... 5:25 Why has, has the gap narrowed so, so much? When you ask whether it's, um, an, an sort of anti-Macron front or a sort of Marine Le Pen who might have changed her image, I think it's both. 5:38 What's happening at the moment is that you first have a, a challenger to Emmanuel Macron, Marine Le Pen, who has done one of her best, uh, presidential campaign. This is, this... 5:50 She has really improved since 2017 in the sense of portraying herself, uh, to the general public in a manner that appears to be less radical than the, the way people viewed her, uh, years ago. 6:06 Now she's, you know, the second best political personality in the country. Uh, she, uh, second f- most favored. Um, she sh- when polled, people, uh, think that, um She understands, uh, people's everyday problems. 6:22 She has, uh, sort of transformed her, her, her image in a more gentle way than was not the case, uh, five years ago. She has also probably, uh, grown in competence. 6:35 She knows how to not talk about topics where she's less secure, and she has really focused on one topic that has really pushed her candidacy forwards, which is the problem of purchasing power, the, the, the impoverishment of France's middle class and lower work- and, and working class, and she has focused on this and to her great benefit. 6:59 At the same time, you had the surge of a really radical candidate six months ago, um, Eric Zemmour, a sort of TV pundit turned into a politician, that really came in, in the, m- uh, directly 7:17 in the, the political sphere with a very racist, insurgent messaging that captivated all the more toxic far-right movement. And in... 7:29 At the beginning, he seemed to be, you know, really taking away votes away from Marine Le Pen and weakening her hand. 7:37 In reality, what seems to have happened is that he has helped Marine Le Pen detoxify her own image because she appeared much less radical than Eric Zemmour. 7:49 So he really compensated this, this, this bad negative image that she was suffering from in taking away this sort of rhetoric, while at the same time imposing this rhetoric on, you know, public TV debate, et cetera, et cetera. 8:06 For all of these reasons, Marine Le Pen, for a second round, will now potentially grab all the Eric Zemmour excited far-right voters who would, you know, rather see Marine Le Pen rather than Emmanuel Macron in, in, uh, elected president, while she has sort of grabbed more to the center as well. 8:27 So really, it's a function of her campaign. On the other side, Emmanuel Macron has solidified his base. So he was, you know, first round of 2017, he was at 24%, a quarter of the population voting for him. 8:42 Now it's slightly higher, it might be up to 30%, so he has clearly solidified his base. 8:48 But he's found it difficult to expand beyond his base, and he has, you know, gotten, gotten the, the support of a large center that is, especially after the beginning of the Ukraine war, 9:05 a center that is sometimes unhappy with his policies. 9:09 I'm thinking about, you know, people who would vote for the Greens, who think he doesn't do enough in terms of climate action, or people who sits on the right who think he doesn't do enough for either education or, or to rein in Spain- spending. 9:24 For different reasons, they might not agree with his policies, but, um, since the beginning of the war, I think these people have flocked back to him to support him as a leader and, and seeking stability. 9:39 But he also has a very strong anti-Macron front that is really, that has solidified over the past five years. 9:49 And it is partly because not only does he dominate the s- the center and made it difficult for, uh, an alternative mainstream party to, uh, challenge him, but he's also antagonized a part of, you know, the far left and the far right in the way he approaches politics, which has been quite combative, which has at times been perceived as, you know, a, a, a way to, to, to divide the country instead of uniting it. 10:19 He, he, he, he mocked some part of, or at least he pushed away, you know, the unvaccinated and, and, and, and, and derided them, or he pushed away the ecologists and derided them. 10:32 At times he's, he's done, uh, things like that, and h- that might have animated, uh, a strong anti-Macron front. I would not exaggerate, though, the risk to Emmanuel Macron's potential re-election. 10:46 He still sits far ahead in the polls in the first round and still, still slightly ahead in the second round. 10:54 The problem is that the, the, it's within the margin of error and, and that is very, very surprising to, to analysts that he would find himself in such a vulnerable position even though he was sitting 11:08 in such a comfortable position, uh, just a few months back. Yeah, it's a, it's a really interesting dynamic, especially given that, uh, the kind of non-campaign that he has been waging for, for his second term. 11:20 I, I definitely want to return to, to the election and its like the outcome and its possible consequences. 11:25 But maybe we, before we do that, we, um, look back a bit and I think especially from looking, uh, uh, to France from, from the outside, what was striking about Macron's ascension to power five years ago was the kind of really forceful positive vision that he had for, uh, for the European Union specifically and France's role in it and further European integration. 11:51 And I remember in, in 2017, shortly after he assumed, uh, his office and he laid out his vision for the European Union in a speech. 12:00 Uh, I was wondering if you could, uh, look back onto that speech, explain a bit the, the vision that he articulated, and especially given that, that France is holding the EU presidency currently, kind of recap the vision that, that Macron came into office with and how it has gone, uh, so far for him. 12:21 Sure. As you said, really, um, Europe is really central to Macron's political identity. 12:29 From the beginning of his campaign, even before launching, he's, he has always pushed, uh, the idea that France should embrace the European Union as an instrument of its own power, 12:43 and should make the European Union more independent and stronger, and bring, transform it into a power as a solution to the, the, to the, the, the, the profound change that the world, uh, has been experiencing. 13:00 So the European Union as a bulwark, uh, f- to, to, to the negative forces that the France and other European countries are up against. 13:11 And really since the early days, because already in his 2016 book, so a year before, uh, being elected, he was already writing that Europe should be a true political project, and that Europe was the chance to recover our full sovereignty. 13:27 So the idea of sovereignty, which is traditionally an idea, an idea of the nationalistic right, who wants to regain its sovereignty in a world that feels too globalized, too dominated by, you know, the US or by China. 13:45 Uh, Macron retakes this idea of sovereignty and brings it at a European level saying what needs to be built is not against Brussels in terms of French sovereignty, but with Brussels for Europe's sovereignty. 13:59 And he's exposed this, as you said, in the speech in the Sorbonne in September 2017, and then repeatedly in subsequent speeches over the years, he's repeated this idea of Europe's sovereignty. 14:11 He also talks about Europe's strategic autonomy. 14:14 But fundamentally, uh, what he wants to, to see is common rules, um, of the game that would allow for not only, you know, similar regulation that would make the internal, uh, market stronger, but also a common budget and a, a capacity to finance Europe's economy with a European, uh, financial mechanism, which was, he was able to push forward during the, the, the, the COVID, uh, pandemic crisis. 14:48 But also, uh, the idea that there should be enhanced cooperation between members in terms of European defense in order to push for an, uh, a stronger Europe, uh, security and de- defense environment, a strategic culture that would come out of it. 15:05 He also pushed these ideas on, on energy, on cyber. All of this has been really his focal point for the past five years. 15:14 In some ways, at times it has taken a precedent over maybe him looking at, at French politics and, and, uh, looking more precisely at was, what was going on in the country. 15:29 And Emmanuel Macron has faced, you know, a sort of a populist protest in 2018 with the Yellow Vest movement. 15:39 He has faced discontent with the way he's dealt with the, the, the, the COVID restrictions and, and when he implemented the digital pass. 15:51 At times, Emmanuel Macron is always in this dichotomy that on the one hand he believes the future for France is through a stronger Europe, and he's gonna push for it, and everything is intertwined between his Fr- French policy and his European policy. 16:09 But sometimes I think he struggles to explain that back to French voters who are now turning towards more, uh, nationalistic offers and, and, and don't always appreciate the work that is being done at the European level. 16:24 And he also had some issues explaining his vision or convincing of his vision other governments and, and politicians in Europe. 16:31 I remember quite vividly living in Germany, um, in 2017, um, reading the reporting about his speech at the, at the Sorbonne, and the reaction in Germany, Angela Merkel was still in power then, was quite reserved, I think one, one could say. 16:47 Germany traditionally taking a much less, much more restrictive view on, on fiscal integration on the level of European Union, historically taking a very con- restricted view on defense, uh, cooperation, and integration. 17:01 And it's... I, I think it's quite f- quite interesting that in some aspect, uh, respects, uh, I think history has proven Macron right. 17:10 You mentioned the COVID-19 pandemic and the kind of joint European reaction to that in the terms of w- joint financing and reconstruction, uh, efforts after COVID-19 that have, that, that became necessary. 17:24 And now with the Ukraine crisis, obviously there, Germany has fullheartedly more or less, uh, embraced this vision of greater defense cooperation, greater defense spending, and has just very recently announced that they will invest quite a bit more money and manpower into, uh, a joint European force. 17:42 So, like, it's quite interesting that he has been a bit ahead of his time there, but I'm not sure if it has benefited his, his, uh, political agenda much. 17:51 And, and I w- I was wondering now that France has the EU presidency, what is France under Macron focusing on here? 17:59 Obviously, Uk- Ukraine, the situation in Ukraine kind of barged into that and probably has, has restructured France's plans for the EU presidency quite substantially. 18:11 But what, what are they focusing on, on at the moment? 18:15 So as you said, he has made, uh, gains very much on the European scene and the, the sort of relentlessness that he has been pushing the idea of European sovereignty has, uh, finally paid off in particular because- Reality has caught up to, to the, to the discourse. 18:33 And I think the very much these ideas of sovereignty have been vindicated by the threat, uh, m- imposed and by Russia and the war imposed by Russia. 18:44 So there is no doubt that all these, these, these steps have been facilitated by having strong French political will in supporting fiscal integration, in supporting, you know, tough sanctions against Russia, for example, et cetera. 19:03 But Macron doing so has proven himself to be really very much the president of crises. 19:10 He has, he has agility, he has a capacity to, you know, to push his own agenda, to, to really be all over the place and, and, and be implicated in, in the decision-making. 19:25 He has more difficulty, I find, to lay out, to make choices and to lay out a roadmap to get France to reform, for example. So it would be completely unfair to say there hasn't been any reform. 19:41 There has been mu- much reform. But he has faced the, the yellow vest protest in the first, uh, part of his, uh, presidency. 19:50 He has faced protests over his interest in reforming the pension system, and at every turn, Macron finds it difficult to, to basically deal with the, with the f- the French system. 20:05 He's been elected in 2017 on his own name and created his party on his own name and has won a, a majority of the vote creating a party out of nothing. 20:19 So he had some politicians that were already quite rooted that joined him, but basically his is a party of renewal that had very little link to, to, to, 20:34 to local authorities, to local cities and, and municipalities, et cetera. And in subsequent local elections, regional elections, uh, municipal elections, his party didn't fare very well. 20:49 So Macron has a problem understanding what goes on on the ground. Because he has talent and political will, he's very successful in Brussels in taking, you know, international politics to a, a different level. 21:04 But when it comes to understanding the mood of the French, the, the, the desires of, you know, of, of reform, he was much more in tune in 2017 when he laid out this positive vision. 21:19 There was a, a wave of change. People wanted something fresh, and he brought that. This time around, I think it's, um, 21:29 it's, uh, less the case that, that he can embody, uh, this renewal, and unfortunately the nationalists are the one that appear to be the newcomers and standing in the way of his, his stronger, you know, European policy. 21:46 Regarding France', uh, priorities for the Council of the European Union, of course everything has been overshadowed by the war in Ukraine, but France is still interested, uh, to push, for example, for a few social and environmental policies. 22:03 One of them would be to have an EU-wide minimum wage. Another one would be to work for c- carbon border tax. There's a lot of work on advancing European legislation on digital affairs. 22:17 All of this, it's, it's not just, you know, France's priorities, the priority of the entire council, but all of this continues to go in the direction of further integration, in the direction of further sovereignty, including in climate action, but also on, on, in the cyberspace. 22:38 And these, these topics will continue to be pushed. 22:42 However, I believe the war in Ukraine, which has continued to turn more and more gruesome and barbaric and, and we are, we cannot even fathom the, the extent of the, the horrors that are taking place will, will be so transformative to Europe's, uh, strategic environment and to Europe's, uh, view of itself that I think topics of defense and security and energy independence will continue to take precedence over everything. 23:17 Certainly. 23:17 Um, especially given the situation in Ukraine, I was wondering, looking at, again, at the campaign in, in, in France, the far-right candidates, Marine Le Pen, Éric Zemmour, they have a history of engagement with Putin, of, of being quite sympathetic of his views on, on NATO expansion, on, on EU integration. 23:37 They share historically quite a lot of his, his agenda, one could even say, on, on these issues. 23:43 Why hasn't that been more of a stumbling block for these far-right candidates with Marine Le Pen even polling better than in 2017 when this sympathy for, for Putin wasn't really a political issue at that point? 23:56 Truthfully, uh, it is a puzzle to me that we can have an entire presidential, um, campaign in France that is entirely dominated by the war in Ukraine. 24:08 If you look at any cable news TV channel or, and read any newspapers or you go online and whatever people are, are retweeting and talking about or, or sending to their friends or discussing on the radio, the war in Ukraine is absolutely central. 24:25 And no one at this point in the, in the political arena, including Marine Le Pen, Éric Zemmour, or Jean-Luc Mélenchon, all three of them that have had, you know, words of sympathies for Vladimir Putin in the past none of them now ha- have repeated those words, have condemned everything. 24:46 And, and so they, they sort of shifted overnight and are, are trying very, very hard for, uh, the general public to forget that for, for, for decades they've either appeased the Putin or, or the, the sort of the Russian narrative on, on Ukraine, on Eastern Europe, or they are, they have supported sometimes Russia's action in Syria for, for a variety of reasons. 25:13 So it's, it's kind of surprising that they wouldn't pay a bigger price. I think there are two explanation to that. 25:19 One that has nothing to do with Ukraine is the fact that Ukraine has not erased the everything else entirely for regular voters. 25:30 There is a question after two years of COVID and kind of an, an equal COVID recovery, there are questions, long-term questions on the economic model of, you know, inequalities of purchasing power, which is fundamentally, you know, wages that are too low versus, you know, prices of everything that are only going up and the, and the, the discrepancy between the two. 25:56 Uh, after two years of, of COVID crisis, you also have a healthcare system that is exhausted and really needs even more support than has, than has been provided. 26:08 Education as well, even though, you know, the government made the very courageous decision to keep schools open. 26:14 You know, the entire society is a little bit exhausted coming out of two years of COVID in and out of restrictions, a very strong crisis followed by a s- a strong recovery. 26:29 But overall, I think, you know, any incumbent president would face s- strong questions on the state of its economy. And so the, the challengers to Macron have worked very much in that regard. 26:43 And then there's a second element which is directly linked with Ukraine. 26:47 I think the fear that this war and the horror that this war generates in everybody's heart, it's very justified, is also bringing in questions on what are the responsibilities, potential responsibilities of the West, and these parties have always been at, at least as much progression as, as they've been anti-American or anti-NATO, and in many ways, or anti-Brussels and anti-EU, and in many ways they also blame Americans and NATO very much for the situation, not equating the two responsibilities, but clearly playing on this idea that, you know, that this is a war that might have been triggered in some ways. 27:33 And this, this comes in very fertile ground with a lot of propaganda in, in, in, 27:42 that has been taking place in nationalistic circles, on social media, on cable TV, as much as it has happened in the US as well, where you, you see corners of the US having, you know, the, a type of discourse that is, that is quite different. 28:01 So, so this is how these people retain, uh, their base even despite their, their Putin sympathies of the past. 28:11 And, and while they, they sort of allude to that, they just focus on anything that is not the war in Ukraine and that, that gives them points. 28:20 Meanwhile, President Macron is obviously extremely busy with the, the, the war in Ukraine and, and preoccupied and appears or is caricatured by, by, caricatured by his challengers, as, you know, detached from everyday problems of the French, too busy with grand politics and grand, and, and not involved in, in people's everyday lives. 28:48 And this is, you know, this is working to some degree and, and is a, a real question for, for, uh, Emmanuel Macron at this turn of his campaign on how to deal with this, uh, negative image. 29:01 Shifting gears a, a bit because I'm, I'm quite interested in your, in your views on that. 29:06 Before the whole crisis in, in Ukraine started in earnest, the other big foreign policy, uh, move that Macron made this year was announcing the, uh, withdrawal of French troops from Mali, where France has been engaged in, uh, in a quite, um, ex- expansive anti-terrorism and stabilization, uh, mission since, I think, uh, 2013, 2014, under Macron's predecessor, François Hollande. 29:36 Back then, Islamist militias, uh, threatened to overthrow the Malian government. 29:42 That is very short version of a very complex situation, but the long and short of it that, that France led an, an intervention in Mali, present there until, until now, or until very recently, uh, with thousands of soldiers in the entire region, and now has withdrawn, and it hasn't really gained as much attention as, for example, the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. 30:05 But in my view, it is of, of, of a similar importance when it comes to France's foreign policy in that region of the world. Um, so I, I don't want to leave it unmentioned here. 30:18 I was wondering if you can share a few insights on, on your view on French interests in the region, such that they are after this withdrawal, and what do you think the, the next steps might be of, of French engagement with the African continent? 30:35 Sure. 30:35 First of all, the French are working very hard to make this withdrawal not a complete withdrawal like we've seen in Afghanistan, but a re- a, a reshuffling, and the idea being that France continues to have security interest in the Sahel and that local, uh, government also continue to have a security interest in, in working with France in the region. 31:02 And therefore, the, the shift is away from Mali, but not necessarily away from Sahel. 31:09 Part of the difficulty with the situation is that the, the war has now lingered for years, close to nine years, and the focus of the past few years has been to Europeanize the mission and really trying to convince European partners that their security also Lied in the south and that they should participate in the, the, you know, with Takuba, the UN missions in the, in the sort of uh, stabiliz- as a stabilizing force for, uh, the region. 31:43 Meanwhile, I think there's been a lack of 31:47 rethinking of this, this mission from a French perspective, that, uh, you know, it's, it's more than 5,000 troops that had, that l- that lingered in, in Mali in that or in, in the Sahel, and that really 32:03 did, did not amount to, to as much of a force as the Americans in Afghanistan, but was really central to the way France was thinking about its own security. However, conditions on the ground changed rapidly. 32:18 The, uh, the, there was two, uh, military coups, uh, one after the other, and the new Malian, uh, authorities that were deemed, you know, uh, either illegitimate and in any case extremely difficult to work with, pushed France away. 32:35 At the same time, there were some pressures all over the continent with Russian mercenaries that, uh, seemed to be providing for just maybe with less, uh, string attached or just more money versus services, a type of security service that clearly the Mali- Malian authorities were interested in. 32:53 For all of these reasons, the French have been sort of pushed out and decided to just go on and, and withdraw while being pushed out at the same time. 33:04 The French perspective is that there is work to be done to s- to stabilize these regions because without s- uh, stability for these regions, you have not only jihadi terrorism and trafficking that can be, be set up and, and, and have, you know, an influence beyond borders, but also a risk for migration instability that concerns that, you know, that would, uh, spill over, um, in a larger es- effect. 33:37 The problem is that it, the mission for the longest time has been entirely focused on counterterrorism, and I think we've missed the opportunity to really focus also on local governance and on development. 33:50 Europe was the one also being really i- implicated in, in the governance question, the development question. 33:58 But this is a moment in time where everything is sort of being reshuffled, and the question long-term for France is that after, you know, sort of the, the most vivid part of the Ukraine war, if, if and, and when it comes, will France still be able to make a case that other European partners have an interest in the Sahel, have an interest in Africa, or will fundamentally sort of the, the threat from the East, uh, take total precedence and make it more difficult for, for the French to, to make that claim? 34:32 I think it's, it's still 34:35 including for France in many ways where, you know, the, the, the feeling of the, the prevalence of the threat might, might shift over time and, and the, the type of, of focus, um, might, uh, shift. 34:48 We've already seen part of the French army relocating the Sahel to Romania with the new troops arriving as a reinforcement for the NATO mission over there. 34:58 And so, so c- so clearly there's, there's, it's, it's a situation in flux, but France will keep an eye on the region and will continue to, to, to, to see how, what, what extent its, its presence is, is useful 35:14 because the, the, the fundamental questions of, of guaranteeing stability for this region of the world still remains very much in, in French security interest. 35:24 That leads quite nicely to, to, to my last big question here. Assuming that Macron wins a second term, 35:31 w- what do you think will his main agenda items be in terms of, of foreign policy, both in the EU but also beyond, and in the unlikely but still possible case that he doesn't win, and I think one can assume that in that case, Marine Le Pen is probably the next president of France, w- what will that situation do with France's position in the world, and, and what impact will, will that have on, on EU politics, but also, a- also beyond? 36:04 So I'll start with Marine Le Pen because her election would be really sending a shock, uh, wave, a very strong one all across the West, I believe, all of Europe to, uh, the US with even though she might not be in a position to, uh, transform France policy immediately, she will have to, she would have to win, uh, the legislative elections that would, that are taking place in June or form some sort of a coalition if she doesn't get a majority. 36:36 And therefore, we would have to see what type of government she would come up with. 36:40 But clearly, an probably anti-NATO, nationalistic government that is in favor of what she calls the Europe of nations, but not, you know, the, the integration that is taking, currently taking place in Brussels. 36:56 So her foreign policy would be nationalistic, recentering on not European strategic autonomy, but on French strategic autonomy. 37:06 She believes she has some support with other nationalists around Europe, uh, not only, uh, Viktor Orbán, but also nationalists that are not necessarily in power in Italy and Spain, who she would hope that would come also in, in power, but it would create a major clash with Germany, and you would... 37:29 We can only imagine the US getting closer to Germany and shutting out France out of, of such a transformation. That is still unlikely at this point. 37:39 She's still likely to lose to, to Emmanuel Macron, and everybody sort of remains vigilant on this prospect. 37:48 If Emmanuel Macron is reelected, he will probably continue with his own method for foreign policy, which I call impatient pragmatism. It's impatient because he believes that the, the world is changing very rapidly. 38:03 He- there is political change, geopolitical change, climate change, and, and, and everything has to be, and, and Europe and France needs to be agile and adapt very rapidly, which is part of the reason why you see him always at the forefront of, of, of foreign policy on, you know, take- dealing with any crisis possible, sometimes, you know, at the risk of not following through, but a very active foreign policy. 38:33 You will continue to see that in a second round. 38:36 S- he- Macron is also a pragmatist, so he doesn't really care ideologically, you know, compared to, for example, the US with a Joe Biden that denounces democracies versus authoritarians. 38:51 You've never seen this type-- You haven't seen as much of this type of a discourse on, on the Macron side. 38:57 His thing is on pushing for a stronger Europe and pushing for what he called result-driven multilateralism, so a multilateralism that delivers to, uh, the people that are supposed to, to be affected. 39:13 And last point on Macron, so you will see him stay active and, and, and, and implicated in foreign policy. There's a big question mark on Russia and his own, you know, relationship and conversations with Russia. 39:28 I think we've, we might have turned a corner with the war crimes that seems to have been perpetrated and potentially, you know, the horrors that we haven't seen in, 39:39 in Europe, uh, since either, um, Yugoslavia, the, the, the fall of the, the wars in, in the Balkans or before that, World War II. 39:50 This will create a mental trauma that will potentially, you know, restrict Macron's ability to continue talking to Putin without, you know, leading to any results. 40:03 For the longest time, this convers- these conversations with Putin were justified by the idea that he, a channel w- of communication was needed with an completely isolated leader who might have not been realizing what was going on. 40:19 The question, or at least that, that is, that is exaggerated, it's... 40:25 But, but i- isolated in the sense that he might not have taken into account all the, the sanctions that were coming his way or the unity and the strength of, um, the West in opposing him. 40:37 That, that, that was sort of the justification for keeping these conversations open. 40:42 Long term, I think the, the pressure will increase on Macron to, to provide some form of, of logic behind this conversation and, and also, you know, he's been talking about creating a new European architecture, security architecture of which Russia will have to be part, 41:03 and I'm not sure this is, this is a line that he will be able to, to continue to conduct when so, so much horrors have been discovered. 41:15 It's also bringing back the centrality of NATO in this se- security architecture as the, you know, sort of ultimate guarantor for all of these countries that do not want to be facing the same type of horrors as Ukraine. 41:30 And so for all of that, all of these reasons, after a potential reelection for Emmanuel Macron, there's 41:37 a lot of thinking that needs to be done on the question of what should be your friends' positions on, on, on, on Russia, on NATO, and, and long term, how to rethink a, a lot of, of, of traditional French positions that have been shaken to the core by this war. 41:59 And for people who want to dive deeper into Macron's approach to foreign policy, I will point you to, um, Celia's latest article in Foreign Affairs, which we will link in the show note. 42:11 I think it's titled Monsieur Fix It, uh, and it's, it's, uh, entirely about Macron's quite, quite energetic foreign policy approach. Um, Celia, thanks so much for taking the time and for, for coming on Trendlines. 42:25 Thank you, Peter. Thank you very much for having me. And thank you, dear listener. If you found this conversation interesting, you would probably enjoy more of Trendlines. 42:34 You can subscribe in any podcast app of your choice, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and you can of course listen to old episodes and find our show notes on worldpoliticsreview.com/podcast. 42:46 My guest today was Celia Belin. My name is Peter Durrie, and I am the producer and editor of Trendlines, and we are published by World Politics Review. Have a great week, and until next time on Trendlines. 42:57 [upbeat music]
