Emmanuel Macron on Monday called on France and Europe to “know how to cooperate” with Donald Trump, but strongly denounced, in the same speech, a “reactionary international news” supported according to him by the billionaire Elon Musk, a strong ally of the president elected official of the United States.
Presenting his foreign policy roadmap to the French ambassadors gathered at the Élysée, the French president seemed to want to have it both ways, by trashing the boss of Tesla, X and Space his return to the White House on January 20.
Drawing on his “experience”, Emmanuel Macron, in power since 2017, invoked the Republican’s first mandate to put European fears into perspective.
“From 2016 to 2020, France was able to work with President Trump”, despite “disagreements”, and Europe was “not unworthy”, even though “we were predicted the worst”, he said. he declared.
“If one decides to be weak and defeatist, there is little chance of being respected by President Trump’s United States of America. And so to the wise, hello! It’s up to us to know how to cooperate with the choice that was made by the American people,” insisted the Head of State. He said that the world’s most famous ghost “knows that he has a solid ally in France.”
Since the billionaire’s election at the beginning of November, Emmanuel Macron has tried to repeat the 2017 scenario, overplaying the agreement with his counterpart. He was the first to welcome him abroad, for the reopening of Notre-Dame Cathedral at the beginning of December, which allowed him to make a diplomatic coup by bringing him together with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky.
Eight years ago, this strategy did not prevent Donald Trump from withdrawing Washington from crucial agreements, on the climate or Iranian nuclear power.
But the French president is not giving up. “This is always my approach, we have to have a personal connection with people who think very differently from us, to create respect,” he said recently in a small group. “We can’t change everything, but we can sort things out,” he said.
“Single thought”
Alongside his outstretched hand, Emmanuel Macron also criticized the positions of the 47e American president.
Firstly, on the climate, his return carries “a very significant risk of regression” in international efforts, he warned.
On Ukraine then, “there will be no quick and easy solution”, he criticized, while Donald Trump had promised an express settlement, leaving Westerners fearing that he was ready to give in a lot to Russia.
His election seeming to shake things up, the French president is now calling on him to “convince Russia to come to the negotiating table”.
But Emmanuel Macron also indirectly attacked the populist tribune by attacking the movement of thought which accompanied his victory and of which he is the symbol. And above all, without naming him, Elon Musk, who has become one of his main allies.
“Ten years ago, if we had been told that the owner of one of the largest social networks in the world would support a new reactionary international movement and intervene directly in elections, including in Germany, who would have imagined it? » he said to his diplomats.
On And to openly support far-right parties, such as the German AfD.
Emmanuel Macron’s comments should cool the good relations he has displayed so far with Elon Musk, also invited to Notre-Dame, as well as to the summit on artificial intelligence planned for February in Paris.
“We have so much to do together,” enthused the French president in 2023 after one of their many meetings, when he hoped to convince him to install a Tesla battery factory in France.
Emmanuel Macron therefore forcefully called not to give in to “a kind of deadly fascination with the international reactionaries”. “They are very strong, they have money”, but they now embody “single thinking”.
“Our liberal democracies have not been effective enough in the face of the challenges of the middle classes, that is true”, but that does not mean “that illiberal democracies or authoritarian regimes would be more effective”, insisted the French president .