The meetings between Emmanuel Macron, François Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy this Wednesday evening highlighted significant differences between the three men. This Thursday, the President of the Republic receives party leaders to “clarify positions” on the war in Ukraine.
This Thursday March 7, 2024, Emmanuel Macron receives the various party leaders to discuss the war in Ukraine, a week after opening the door to sending French troops to the field. A meeting which will take place mid-morning to “clarify positions” indicated the President of the Republic during a trip to Prague at the start of the week.
This meeting precedes a debate on the question of France’s aid toUkraine which must take place on March 12 in the National Assembly and the next day in the Senate. The debate will be followed by a vote on the bilateral security agreement between the two countries, in particular due to the latest outings of the Head of State on a possible deployment of the tricolor army which divides the political class even in the majority. But this Wednesday, an evening and individual interviews between Emmanuel Macron and his two predecessors, Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande could have revealed a new ideological divide.
“Don’t say what you do, but do what you don’t say”
Wednesday evening, Emmanuel Macron received his predecessors Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande at the Elysée. A sort of dress rehearsal before meeting the party leaders this Thursday morning. Conflict in Georgia in 2008 for the first, annexation of Crimea for the second in 2014, these two profiles have significant experience in relations with Vladimir Putin and knowledge of how the character functions. While France stepped up almost alone to send troops to Ukrainian soil, the former socialist president François Hollande judged this Wednesday, at the end of the interview with Emmanuel Macron and Nicolas Sarkozy that he was preferable to “not say what we are doing, but to do what we have not said. This is what allows us to be most effective”.
According to Hollande, who met Vladimir Putin a lot, the latter “was always in this search for the balance of power, he wants to impress, so the only possible response is to show that we are with the Ukrainians in total solidarity, that we provide them with all the necessary support, without participating in any combat ourselves,” he explained to the press. Nicolas Sarkozy went straight into his car after the meeting, without giving his impressions. The latter clearly stands out from the position of François Hollande. “France is wrong to deliver continuous flow weapons to one of the belligerents” he wrote in his book The time of fighting (Fayard 2023). He had probably already said everything.
The opposition criticizes Emmanuel Macron’s position
In recent days, President Macron has not hesitated to strengthen his speech against the Kremlin by reaffirming unfailing support for kyiv. What changes the situation is the positioning of the war within the political debate, something new. This Thursday, the leaders of groups with a party in Parliament will therefore be received at the Elysée in a “Rencontres de Saint-Denis” format, which he inaugurated in the summer of 2023. A meeting which could be a way of pushing all political parties to position themselves clearly on the subject of the conflict between the Russia and Ukraine, from La France Insoumise (LFI) to the National Rally (RN).
On the opposition side, it is clear that sending troops into the field is not to everyone’s taste. The disapproval is clear, particularly on the side of the National Rally, the party which is leading the race in the polls for the next European elections. The president of the RN and head of the list for this election Jordan Bardella indicated at the end of February on an engagement of our troops against a nuclear power is an act as serious as it is imprudent.” Same story for the first secretary of the Socialist Party, Olivier Faure this Wednesday: “Support the Ukrainian resistance yes. Throwing torches in the powder magazine, no!” he said.
Doubts even within the majority
For Manuel Bompard, coordinator of LFI, France “must rule out any hypothesis which would make it belligerent”. Eric Ciotti, the boss of the Republicans, points to a France that is now “isolated”. Doubts felt even in Macronie: “I don’t think we should make it a campaign issue” confides an ally of the Head of State to BFMTV. If France now appears isolated to some, Emmanuel Macron “takes responsibility” for his comments and calls for a “strategic surge”, always with the aim of a war in which the West could participate. During his visit to Prague this week, he also justified his latest statements by a “spirit of defeat” which “lurks” according to him.