“Europe, what phone number?” Exclaimed Henry Kissinger, former US Secretary of State, in 1970. Half a century later, Donald Trump has still failed to get his hands on the “06” of Ursula von der Leyen. But it would have been enough for him by a phone call for an hour and a half with his old comrade Vladimir Putin to seal the fate of Ukraine, referring Europe to absent subscribers. Among the 27 Union leaders, some – including Emmanuel Macron – can today jump on their chair like Cabris by saying “Europe! Europe!”, Nothing faces it: the The long -awaited electroshock has not occurred, and the old continent, from withdrawal to renunciation, has unfortunately not taken the measure of the Russian compressor roller, in search of a new sphere of influence in central Europe. “The objective is to restore our borders,” said Volodymyr Zelensky at L’Express in August 2022, after six months of war. Removing and convinced, standing in mind to Russia, to defend the colors of Europe, the former clown metamorphosed in war chief had entrusted us with his main fear: even extend a “fatigue” of the ‘West in the face of a conflict that was likely to last a long time.
Three years later, fatigue is there, and Uncle Sam, or rather the Uncle Trump on departure. The President of the United States had warned long before his election in November: the one who dreams of winning the Nobel Peace Prize swore to settle the Ukrainian conflict in twenty-four hours. It will probably take him a few additional weeks, but this time, we are there. Peace is at hand, but what a peace! Vladimir Putin exults, Donald Trump belch, and Europe falls. Without glory or honor. The Munich spirit is back: “The idiots!”, Would have exclaimed Edouard Daladier, by landing at Le Bourget, after this strange peace negotiated in September 1938 with Adolf Hitler in Bavaria. We know the rest.
Is it too late to react? Because the rest, we can already guess it. Vladimir Putin, chief dictator and revenge at heart, will keep putting Ukraine on his knees, before attacking Georgia, Moldova, even Baltic or Poland…
Europe, crowned with the Nobel Peace Prize in December 2012, has to wake up. From Paris to Warsaw, from Berlin to Vilnius, the time is for resistance and cohesion. Faced with Trump’s tweets or Putin’s Oukases, it is urgent that this European “society of spirit”, which Paul Valéry was called, made his voice and his weapons heard. At the time of social networks under American domination and foreign interference of Moscow or China, when it is not Pyongyang, Europe, born from the victory of the Allies in 1945, must wake up under penalty of being erased. But to say no to Washington or Moscow, it is still necessary to exist economically and militarily. Two conditions far from being met: for the twenty-seven of the European Union, the time of the “reset” has just ringed. For Europe, for Ukraine.
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