Donald Trump’s tweets landed like transatlantic missiles in Emmanuel Macron’s backyard.
Just a few days after they held an awkward meeting on the sidelines of ceremonies in Paris to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War, the U.S. President felt a need to get the better of his French counterpart in the only way he knows how – in a barrage of below-the-belt Twitter missives that recalled France’s collaborationist past.
“They were starting to learn German in Paris before the U.S. came along,” Mr. Trump charged in a Tuesday tweet that evoked the Nazi occupation during the Second World War, which is just about as a low as anyone can go in aiming to hit the French where it hurts most.
That Mr. Trump, consciously or not, unleashed his Twitter diatribe on the third anniversary of the 2015 Paris terrorist attacks that left 130 dead was of secondary concern to Mr. Macron, even if his spokesman did complain that the U.S. President should have shown “common decency” on such a solemn date for the French. Even so, Mr. Macron’s biggest concern was that Mr. Trump’s ire stemmed from a giant misunderstanding.
Indeed, the U.S. President, who has pilloried European countries for failing to bear their fair share of the defence burden as members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, seemed to take Mr. Macron’s plan for a “real” European army as a threat and insult rather than a sign that the French President was acting on Mr. Trump’s urgings. Mr. Trump also appeared to take Mr. Macron’s Sunday speech, in which he warned about the dangers of nationalism, as a personal attack on the avowed nationalist U.S. President’s “America First” modus operandi.
But Mr. Macron’s speech was not primarily a rebuke of Mr. Trump, even if the U.S. media largely characterized it as that. The U.S. President’s obsession with his own press made it all but inevitable that he would fire back at Mr. Macron, if only to ensure he got the last word in.
Le Monde quoted a “close” confidant to Mr. Macron, who insisted that the French President was unperturbed by Mr. Trump’s tweets, which were “intended first and foremost for Americans,” adding: “The relationship between Emmanuel Macron and Donald Trump is not an easy one, but it is ongoing and what’s important is that they speak to each other several times a week.”
The truth is that Mr. Macron has bigger worries than Mr. Trump right now. His elaborate staging of the French ceremonies surrounding the 100th anniversary of the armistice served as the unofficial launch of his campaign against the anti-nationalist forces in the 2019 European elections. His speech, in which he called nationalism “the exact opposite of patriotism” and warned of “old demons” resurfacing, was aimed mostly at a European audience.
“Nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism,” Mr. Macron insisted. “In saying ‘our interests first, whatever happens to the others,’ you erase the most precious thing a nation can have, that which makes it live, which causes it to be great and which is most important: its moral values.”
That message was directed primarily at French voters drawn toward the National Rally (formerly National Front) of Marine Le Pen, who has made common cause with Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in demonizing immigrants as the cause of most of Europe’s woes and pushing for an end to the European Union’s open-borders policy.
“The choice in [the 2019 European elections] will be between the EU of Macron, marching toward federalism and mass immigration, and the Europe of Free Nations, of the identities and protections that we represent,” Ms. Le Pen tweeted in August after a meeting between Mr. Orban and Mr. Salvini. Mr. Macron designated himself as the “principal opponent” of the nationalist forces seeking to undermine the EU’s foundations after that meeting.
With German Chancellor Angela Merkel on her way out, the weekend ceremonies in France made it clear that Mr. Macron is Europe’s true leader now. It’s true, as Mr. Trump took delight in pointing out, that Mr. Macron’s approval rating is now as low as those of his two immediate predecessors, Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande, who both ended up as one-term presidents. But Mr. Macron’s boosters insist that, unlike them, he has the ability to recover.
Mr. Trump’s sense of history is shaky at best and his capacity for situating his presidency in its historical context is next to nil. Mr. Macron is the exact opposite. His entire mission as President is steeped in a desire to make France Europe’s indispensable nation, as it once was.
He really does want to make France great again. But he knows that can only happen if the EU thrives, too.
Konrad Yakabuski