Champagne diplomacy

What is he doing, really? And what does he think he’s doing anyway? Emmanuel Macron’s bizarre foreign policy is that France is a global player on its own and is trying to position itself as a mediator between East (Russia and China) and West, Europe and the United States. You may remember him trying to act the role of mediator between President Biden and Saudi Arabia’s Prince Muhammed Bin Salman at the G7 in Germany last year.  His foreign policy is also backed with incorrect history and gross mistakes on basic concepts such as his definition of “non-alignment”.

To cut a long story short, France can’t play the role of a global player on its own and Macron on the international stage is insignificant. Macron’s foreign affairs act is a mixture of stupidity, delusions of grandeur and short-term business opportunism (French companies cutting deals with the Chinese government and Chinese companies). Germany is also competing with France over good relationships with China, but Germany is more opportunistic than France and has fewer delusions of grandeur. Instead of having this silly competition between each other for good relationships with a strategic-economic and political adversary, European leaders would do better if they would deal with China with a unified policy. And European states should work together to enhance each other’s economic and political position with China collectively instead of having individual European leaders trying to play heroes. Unfortunately, the dangers of a bullish China are overlooked, but Macron even goes a step further.

Macron wants to involve China in the Russian invasion of Ukraine, again with his delusion of grandeur to be the bridge maker of the world. What a wonderful idea. Indeed, let’s bring the second-biggest power in the world to the decision-making table of Europe and decide together on the affairs of a European nation which has just been brutalised by a Russian war, just like the old imperialists used to do. We’ll get together, smoke a couple of cigars and set the map of the world right. After all, it makes sense to get China on an imperialist-style peace-negotiating table as China tells the whole world that it is going to start a war against Taiwan.

The man is a total imbecile, and no wonder decent European leaders didn’t want to be seen associated with him. I’m going to go off on a tangent now and speak from personal experience. As a previous government executive who used to export Maltese literature and books across the world, I have extensive experience dealing with diplomats and ambassadors. There is for sure, something wrong in the French Foreign Affairs Department that makes it possible for Macron to conjure such insane foreign policies. Although I have met very professional diplomatic staff at the French Embassy in Malta, across the world I have also met many French diplomats who most of the time, were literally drunk. There is surely a huge distinctive gap between two types of French diplomats and that is the principled French diplomat and the drunk French diplomat. And thinking about it, it makes sense. Many of these diplomats and government officials have it really good, flying across the world and running significant budgets to conduct their foreign policy with much of it going to parties, dinners, and whatnot. Most of them are just in it to have fun, and playing these kinds of games with authoritarian dictatorships are typical of someone who would ignore danger ahead given that they are completely alienated in their feast with drunken stupor.