“Our concerns have been neglected for thirty years. » Said Vladimir Putin, whose resentment is matched only by his capacity for military blackmail. A resentment that French President Emmanuel Macron has been trying to hear for a few weeks, taken by a diplomatic activism which swears, is it not, with the impression of inertia projected by the government of Joe Biden, who does not seem to know how to do anything but brandish the threat of sanctions. We can’t rewrite history, Macron thinks, but we can try to repair the damage.
Distinctly testifies to this voluntarism the long interview of five hours that Macron had with Putin, Monday, in the Kremlin. Interview at the end of which Mr. Macron, whose elegant words do not hide the vagueness of the possible solutions, pleaded for “a new process” alongside a Putin who said he was ready for “compromise”. Between Moscow and Kiev, where he continued his mediation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday, Macron continued in the same encouraging tone, claiming to have obtained from his Russian counterpart guarantees of non-escalation in the Russian-Western crisis.
Time is running out, given the troops that Putin has massed on the Ukrainian border. Nevertheless, the conflict settles in another time—that of the slow time of diplomacy. Which basically suits Mr. Poutine and for which we are grateful to Mr. Macron.
What is interesting with Mr. Macron’s activism is that he brings Europe back into the game, against Moscow as against Washington. The “Europe of defence” dreamed of by the French president remains a utopia, given the differences between national states, and it goes without saying that the crisis around Ukraine has a global impact, especially since the intransigence of Putin has the effect of closing ranks around NATO. All that remains is to defend the idea of a “new security architecture” with Russia and to try to define its nebulous contours, the French president has at least the merit of highlighting the relevance of developing for Europe a common policy. It usefully brings the Ukrainian affair back to its properly European dimensions.
Remaking history would consist in undoing the integration of the former Eastern European countries into NATO, carried out in haste in the 1990s. That will not happen, of course. Also, it is one thing to reach out to Putin, as Macron does with, moreover, the support of a good part of the French political class, from left to right. It is quite another to find a diplomatic way out that preserves “peace in Europe” while guaranteeing, which is not negotiable, the fragile sovereignty of the Ukrainian people. When Putin claims for Russia “security guarantees” and the commitment that NATO will never welcome Ukraine, he is in fact claiming that his “zone of influence” be preserved. And expresses its categorical and armed opposition to the idea that a democracy develops at the gates of Russia – read those of an authoritarian regime today pegged to a Chinese giant with which it openly advocates the construction of a post-Western world.
There are many sketches for a way out of the crisis: the beginning of a strategic dialogue, more transparency in military activities, limited deployments of intermediate and short-range missiles… And then, inevitably, the relaunch of talks around the Minsk agreements, signed in 2015 to put an end to the conflict in the Donbass, but whose application is paralyzed by the dialogue of the deaf between Kiev and Moscow. As for the “Finlandization” of Ukraine, this is a question that remains taboo.
But the fact is that all these sketches of a solution lie on the periphery of Putin’s maximalist claims, illustrating that the diplomatic room for maneuver of Mr Macron, who says he aspires to “invent something new by definition”, is extremely tenuous. . Its efforts to present a more coherent European front would obviously be more fruitful if Germany were not held in check by Russian gas. If, therefore, his diplomatic marathon has allowed Macron the Peacemaker to take small steps, these are standing still for the time being. Which, despite everything, presents more hope than the alarmist discourse of the Americans, an alarmism that the Kiev government criticized, again on Wednesday, in veiled terms.
It is difficult not to note Mr. Macron’s propensity to try to make people listen to reason who do not want to hear anything. He had tried it with ex-President Donald Trump, who had not taken long to send him to graze. Will he have more success with Vladimir Putin?