French class: Macron embraces Trump

Ronald Tiersky

Professor emeritus of political science

Amherst College

July 19, 2017

From RealClearWorld

FRENCH CLASS: MACRON EMBRACES TRUMP

Americans should have been surprised that the French broadly approved President Emmanuel Macrons invitation to President Donald Trump as guest of honor for the July 14 Bastille Day celebration.

Furthermore, there were almost no protests against Trump unlike the G-20 meeting.

Dont the French disdain Trump and arent they incredulous that the supposedly great American democracy could have elected him?

As a sheer political calculation, wasnt Macron taking a large, unnecessary risk in the invitation? Of damaging his support in public opinion and even among his majority in parliament?

Wasnt Macron also splitting from the European consensus at the G-20 that made Trump a persona non grata?

There was of course a ready-made reason for the invitation: the 100th year anniversary of Americas entry into World War I on the side of France and Britain against Germany. Furthermore, American military personal were invited to march in the annual martial display down the Avenue Champs Elysees that remains a staple of French patriotic feeling.

Macron made a heartfelt speech emphasizing Franco-American alliance and the strong affinities of the two nations. Trumps presence was a sign of a friendship across the ages.

He thanked the United States for a choice it made 100 years ago.

(President Charles de Gaulle, by contrast, always expressed gratitude for Americas crucial aid but added pointedly that it took three years for American forces to arrive in WWI, in 1917, and five years in World War II, June 1944, D-Day.)

What was Macron up to?

Quickly-written editorials said that Macron wanted a reset of his initially stormy personal relationship with Trump.

Considerably more was involved than that however. Macron has already shown that he thinks strategically and geopolitically. He has a Europeans classic sense of the long term. That countries and peoples operate with long memories built of turning points in their experience.

Macron, as a French leader, has a Gaullist sense of the importance of history in global politics and of national political cultures in relations between states. He is the anti-Trump. International relations is not simply about winning and losing, about getting the best deals today. Macron has an idea of France in her historic special role as a permanent counter-example to American can-do impatience.

In short, its more than Macron trying to make it up with Trump. He was representing not only himself and his government. He was representing France and Frances historic relations with Europes crucial ally in global affairs.

By inviting Trump to the Bastille Day ceremonies and making a great show of courtesy and respect (yes, respect), Macron was legitimizing Trump, who is, whatever his unsavory character, after all the president of the United States of America.

Macron was, as the Chinese say, giving Trump face.

Once again France is Europes diplomatic leader, with Macron setting an intelligent, realistic example for Europeans in general. Trump is the American president and, as Americans say, deal with it. Europeans must respect what the American electoral system has wrought.

In a small waythe comparison is overblown but instructiveMacrons legitimation of Trump recalled two greater historical moments. First, de Gaulles legitimation of postwar rehabilitated West Germany (the 1963 Elyse Treaty of Friendship signed with Chancellor Konrad Adenauer). Second, President Franois Mitterrands legitimation of German unification in 1990 despite his initial worries and UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatchers strong opposition.

The similarity in the three cases is France playing its part. Macrons invitation to Trump, de Gaulle would have said, France is behaving like France.

At the same time, Macron is setting up another Gaullist and Mitterrand-style strategic policy: keeping the U.S. at a distance. Friendship and alliance with the U.S. need not mean subservience to American foreign policy. An independent French and European foreign policy is good for Europe and, if only Washington will act with geopolitical rational sense, good for the U.S. as well.