There has always been a touch of the actor about Emmanuel Macron, and the President of France was at his theatrical best at Davos on Tuesday. Sporting a pair of aviator sunglasses to conceal a broken blood vessel in his eye, Macron played the part of a man unjustly treated.
Not just him, but all of Europe. “We do prefer respect to bullies,” concluded Macron in his address to the World Economic Forum. “We do prefer science to plotism, and we do prefer rule of law to brutality. You are welcome in Europe and you are more than welcome to France.”
Macron didn’t mention Donald Trump by name but the audience understood that he was the big bad bully the French President had in mind.
It’s a role that Macron has himself played in the past, as well as some of his predecessors in the Elysee Palace. In 2008, for example, Ireland voted against the EU treaty, which was designed to overhaul the bloc’s institutions. The then-president of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, declared that “the Irish will have to vote again.”
As the Guardian remarked at the time: “What part of Ireland’s ‘no’ does the EU not understand?” So the Irish were forced to vote again and fortunately – for the EU, at least – they voted the correct way second time around.
The French people had also voted “non” to the EU Treaty in a 2005 referendum, a result that wasn’t to Sarkozy’s liking. So he and the French parliament decided the best thing to do was say yes to the treaty, and to hell with what the majority wanted.
Little old Ireland was small enough to bully back into line but Britain was too big to be told to vote again when the people chose to leave the EU in 2016. Nonetheless, Brussels deployed aggressive tactics from the outset in Brexit negotiations.
In 2017, British prime minister Theresa May issued a remarkable statement, one which wasn’t in keeping with her courteous Euro-friendly nature. “Threats against Britain have been issued by European politicians and officials,” said May. She then suggested that these threats had been timed to coincide with the upcoming general election in an attempt to influence the vote. May added that some people “do not want these talks to succeed…do not want Britain to prosper.”
Step forward, Emmanuel Macron. According to Boris Johnson, who succeeded Theresa May as prime minister of Britain, the French president was a “positive nuisance” during Brexit negotiations because he was determined to “punish” Britain for their temerity in voting to leave.
One way Macron made a nuisance of himself was in 2021 when France and Britain fell out over fishing rights in the English Channel. France threatened to cut power to the Channel Island of Jersey, a British Crown Dependency 14 miles off the French coast. The British government accused France of “a campaign of bullying and intimidation.”
Similar tactics were deployed by the EU in 2022 in the run-up to Italy’s general election. During a visit to Princeton University, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was asked if she feared a victory for the conservative candidate Giorgia Meloni. “We’ll see,” replied von der Leyen. “If things go in a difficult direction… we have tools.” Matteo Salvini, now Meloni’s deputy PM, called the remark “a disgusting and arrogant threat.”
The EU’s “tools” were in the news again this time last year. In a television interview France’s former EU commissioner, Thierry Breton, implied Brussels has ways and means to change the direction of elections: “We did it in Romania and we will obviously do it in Germany if necessary.” That remark was referenced by Vice President J.D. Vance in his now-infamous speech at the Munich Security Conference last February. “These cavalier statements are shocking to American ears,” said Vance.
Macron mentioned “tools” in his speech at Davos on Tuesday. “Europe has very strong tools now, and we have to use them when we are not respected,” he said. “And when the rules of the game are not respected.”
Brussels is a classic bully in that it pushes around the weak but runs from the strong. It will threaten African countries – such as Uganda and Nigeria – on LGBTQ rights, as it will Hungary and Poland, but it says nothing on the same subject to rich Arab States or North African countries it sees as necessary partners.
Macron may be struggling with his sight at the moment, but Trump isn’t. He sees the EU for what it is: a weak, blustering bully which has finally met its match.
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