They are 12 candidates in the running for the Élysée in the framework of the French presidential election, the first round of which will take place on Sunday. [10 avril]. A strange election for which the campaign was not really carried out, crushed by the news linked to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
In the current circumstances, the diplomatic vision of the candidates is above all – and almost exclusively – defined through the positioning of each other vis-à-vis Moscow and, implicitly, NATO. In the long run, however, the number one challenge for Paris – now a middle power – is finding its place in a multipolar world dominated by the US-Russia-China strategic triangle.
Faced with increasingly crucial issues, France’s traditional “Arab policy”, the questioning of which began under the mandate of Nicolas Sarkozy (2007-2012), has lost ground and is part of largely absent from the current presidential debates, even if certain points of view have been known for a long time and have not changed significantly over the last decade.
Macron’s realpolitik
“The outgoing president’s five-year term has been illustrated by a brilliant diplomacy and the desire to position himself as a weighty mediator on several international issues. Not without a certain illusion.”
This was particularly the case with Vladimir Putin, whose ambitions in Ukraine he underestimated. With Donald Trump on the Iranian nuclear issue. Or even in Lebanon, where his displayed voluntarism ended in bitter failure.
Emmanuel Macron’s mandate has been characterized by the deepening of the strategic partnerships forged in previous years with the Egypt of Marshal [Abdel Fattah Al-Sissi]Saudi Arabia of Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), both to meet strategic objectives – including the fight against terrorism –, economic and diplomatic.
In the Gulf, the outgoing president has played the realpolitik card to the full, the first head of state to visit MBS since his banishment from the international community in 2018, following the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi , in Istanbul. “Who can imagine working for stability in the Middle East without talking to Saudi Arabia, the first Gulf country in terms of size and population, a member of the G20 and the main economy in the region”said Macron in December 2021 during his regional tour of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the Emirates. […]
Because Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Qatar offer excellent outlets for the French arms industry, Macron’s policy has been regularly decried by human rights organizations for its complacency. , even its complicity in serious violations of fundamental rights, whether in the context of the war in Yemen – the worst humanitarian crisis in the world – where Riyadh and Abu Dhabi use weapons made in France. Or in Egypt, where these weapons are used to repress opponents. In December 2020, France caused an outcry by presenting the Grand Cross to the Egyptian head of state. Third arms exporter in the world behind Washington and Moscow, Paris has in the top six of its customers between 2017 and 2020 Riyadh (1), Abu Dhabi (4) and Cairo (6).
As early as June 2017, Emmanuel Macron announced the need for an update [en Syrie]pointing out that “the dismissal of Bashar El-Assad is not a prerequisite for everything”. “Bashar is not our enemy, he is the enemy of the Syrian people”, he insisted. In April 2018, however, Paris joined Washington and London in carrying out targeted strikes against military sites suspected of hosting the regime’s chemical program. [syrien].
Despite Macron’s initial statements, Paris has stuck to a hard line on Damascus. Witness the declaration of the Minister of Foreign Affairs Jean-Yves Le Drian for the ten years of the Syrian revolution, in March 2021: “France, together with its EU partners, will continue to make the reconstruction of Syria and the normalization of relations with Damascus conditional on the implementation of a credible, lasting political solution that complies with Security Council resolution 2254. United Nations.”
Officially [sur le dossier israélo-palestinien], the outgoing president sticks to the traditional French line. But he reaffirmed several times that anti-Zionism was anti-Semitism for him. On December 3, 2019, the National Assembly also adopted the Maillard resolution on the definition of anti-Semitism including certain forms of anti-Zionism. Emmanuel Macron’s mandate has been punctuated by controversies relating to the expression