2023-06-23 11:45:00
INTERNATIONAL SCENE – Emmanuel Macron invites himself to the next BRICS summit (bringing together Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). The President of the Republic, who announced “for his availability and his interest”, could go next August to South Africa and become the first leader of a G7 country to take part in one of the summits of this organization. The announcement, made by Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna during her visit to Pretoria, has already aroused a reaction from Moscow, which qualifies “inappropriate” a possible arrival of the tenant of the Élysée.
The French daily L’Opinion already reported in mid-June the Head of State’s request to his South African counterpart, Cyril Ramaphosa, to be invited to the next BRICS summit in Pretoria. Macron’s presence at this summit “was mentioned during the conversation between the two leaders, but Pretoria gave no indication as to whether or not this meeting would be extended to other international leaders”.
The information was confirmed by Ms. Colonna during a press conference held on Monday June 19 with her counterpart Naledi Pandor. “We didn’t talk about it today, but we talked about it on May 26” last, on the occasion of the visit of the head of South African diplomacy to Paris. The French official justified the president’s desire to participate in this next BRICS summit by the need to “to dialogue”. “It seems to us that dialogue is always positive, even when we don’t agree 100% on everything. You have to talk to understand each other and to find solutions”she explained, relayed by RFI. “We are thinking aloud, but it is obviously a decision that the countries concerned are alone in a position to take”.
Naledi Pandor did not rule out the possibility of such a visit. “If this happens, it would be an innovation within the current BRICS participation model, but it could amplify the global reach of the BRICS forum”, she said. But what are the chances of Macron’s participation in this summit?
On the one hand, the head of French diplomacy demands an invitation “in full respect of international law”. A nod to the possible presence of Russian President Vladimir Putin, targeted by an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court (ICC) for “war crime”. A traditional ally of the Kremlin, Pretoria, a member of the ICC, is supposed to question the Russian president if he goes to South Africa, which has always refused to condemn Moscow since the start of the war in Ukraine.
For Moscow, Macron is not welcome
On the other hand, the final decision which falls to Ramaphosa in his capacity as President of the “inviting power”, must precisely put in the balance the reaction of Russia, not very excited by the request of the head of the Élysée. The message is clear: “Heads of states with a hostile policy towards Russia are not welcome at the BRICS summit”, writes Sputnik. It is the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister, Sergei Ryabkov who expressed the Russian official position in Pretoria.
“It is clear that the heads of states who pursue such a hostile and unacceptable policy for us, who argue so insistently and with conviction that Russia must be isolated internationally, who share the line of the whole of NATO advocating our so-called strategic defeat, such a leader is not suitable as a guest of BRICS”he said, hoping that this position “will be fully accepted”.
If Macron attends the next BRICS summit, he would be the first leader of a G7 country to do so. The head of the Elysee Palace shares with the other BRICS leaders the project to overhaul the current financial and geopolitical order, but the approaches seem very different. The BRICS are turning to a dedollarization while France hosts this Thursday 22 and Friday 23 June 2023 the summit for a “new financial pact” in Paris, with the aim of “laying the foundations of a new global financial system, and better arming fragile states against climate change and poverty as a priority”.
The head of the Élysée also has ambiguous relations with the member countries of this organization, particularly Russia and China. While France has repeatedly called for peace negotiations between Moscow and kyiv, it is also one of Ukraine’s main suppliers of heavy weapons and military equipment. During his visit to China in April 2023, the United States’ first rival, he called on the European Union not to be “follower” of Washington, particularly on the Taiwan issue. A month later, he co-signed a statement by G7 leaders calling China a “greatest challenge to global security and prosperity”.
“Intermediate” between North and South
Through this request for an invitation to the BRICS summit, just like the organization of the summit for a “new financial pact” in Paris or its call for a “one world order” in November 2022 from the Thai capital Bangkok on the occasion of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, Emmanuel Macron puts on his cap of“‘intermediate” between the countries of the North and the South. He had already called in September 2022 to “building a new contract between the North and the South” pour “avoiding the fracture of the world”.
If his approach is described by a professor at Science-Po, Bertrand Badie, as “de Gaulle’s old vision”the latter acknowledges to Macron “a lucidity to understand that the way out of the current crises requires a preferential targeting of the countries of the South and in particular of the emerging ones”.
In any case, the decision to invite or not his French counterpart is expected from the South African President, Cyril Ramaphosa, present these two days in Paris on the occasion of the summit to “a new financial pact”.
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