When Emmanuel Macron takes over as head of the Council of the European Union on January 1, 2022, he is far from suspecting that it is a war, in the east of the EU, that he will be confronted with. On February 24, Russia invaded Ukraine on the orders of Vladimir Putin. A conflict that everyone feared, but no one believed in at the time. The 400 measures on which the French president intended to work with his European counterparts, during his six months at the head of the EU, are relegated to the background.
From January until today, journalist and director Guy Lagache has followed in the footsteps of the Head of State and his diplomatic advisers. While his initial project was to tell in a way “pedagogic“the functioning of Europe, the invasion of Ukraine plunges the journalist into the heart of a conflict on an unprecedented scale on the continent since the Second World War. Alone with his camera, he acutely reveals the extreme complexity of the exercise of power by Emmanuel Macron who poses as a mediator on behalf of Europe.An immersion in the heart of the diplomatic cell which makes the richness of the sequences ofA president, Europe and the war, broadcast Thursday June 30 on France 2 at 9:10 p.m.
“I’m talking to you from the gym”
Among the most edifying moments, a muscular nine-minute conversation between Emmanuel Macron and Vladimir Poutin, on February 20, 2022. The day before, the Russian president recognized the “two people’s republics” separatists of Luhansk and Donetsk, located in the east of Ukraine, and hopes that its proposals will be taken into account at the international level.
Emmanuel Macron protests against this request. “I don’t know where your lawyer learned the law. Me, I look at the texts and I try to apply them, firmly slams the French president against Vladimir Putin. I don’t know what jurist will be able to tell you that, in a sovereign country, laws are proposed by separatists and not by democratically elected authorities.” Guy Lagache captures this telephone exchange on the spot in the Elysian office of Emmanuel Bonne, the diplomatic adviser to the Head of State.
Vladimir Putin gets annoyed and doesn’t let go. “It’s not a democratically elected government. They came to power in a bloody coup. There were people burned alive. It was a bloodbath,” retorts the Russian president. While Emmanuel Macron succeeds in wresting from the master of the Kremlin an agreement in principle on a meeting with the American president, Joe Biden, Vladimir Putin surrealistically closes their exchange with crucial issues. “PTo be honest with you, I wanted to go play ice hockey. Now I’m talking to you from the gym.” QFour days later, war broke out.
The documentary A president, Europe and the war, directed by Guy Lagache and produced by Elephant & cie, is broadcast on France 2, Thursday June 30 at 9:10 p.m.