When Emmanuel Macron visited Lebanon in January 2017 to meet with high-ranking officials, including President Michel Aoun and Prime Minister Sa’ad Hariri, few believed that the young candidate would win the French presidency. Even fewer listened carefully to his 45-minute talk at the ESA Business School [Ecole Superieure des Affaires], which touched upon his stance on key issues such as regional security, the War in Syria, the resulting refugee crisis that has now crippled Lebanon, as well as the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Macron highlighted France’s diplomatic legacy in the area and its deep ties with the Levant, which he defined in a single word: Resilience.
Will President-elect Macron now succeed in redirecting French foreign policy in the Arab and Muslim worlds and to what end?
As the ultimate realist, Macron highlighted in his important ESA address the necessity to embark on collective approaches to dealing with upheavals, aware of the profound transformations that are gradually redefining borders. He declared: “New risks are emerging, security risks, terrorism, migration, climate risks ... everything is in the process of a deep upheaval. And facing this massive transformation, most people will have a simple choice to make,” to adapt.
While he acknowledged that Lebanon lived through calamities galore, Macron praised Beirut for opening its doors to Syrian refugees, even if he also insisted that “sharing the burden” was not the answer. “The solution,” he hammered, “is ending the Syrian conflict” that underscored a fundamental challenge to an individual who cherishes “clear and determined diplomatic policies, in the tradition of Charles De Gaulle and Francois Mitterrand, to establish France as an independent, humanist, European power”.
In other words, and because Macron telegraphed his wishes to distance France from the neo-Atlanticism espoused by former French president Nicolas Sarkozy and the out-going head-of-state, Francois Hollande, it was increasingly clear that his vision differed and that few should be surprised by coming changes.
Macron’s chief writ is to strengthen the French economy in a reformed Europe, but it is now amply clear that he will quickly confront a variety of foreign policy challenges that need to be dealt with on account of his veto-power at the United Nations Security Council. To be sure, the next president will concentrate on internal French concerns, uphold European treaties, back Nato and sustain the challenged United Nations system. Indeed, his own country’s veto power will gain fresh value, especially if Brexit goes through and London leaves Europe, as France will be called upon to leverage its power at the UN on behalf of the European Union. It will thus gain added weight not only on the European continent, but also around the world, fully supported by Germany, a vital ally that is now an indispensable partner too. In other words, we should expect the Franco-German couple, which is a relatively strong duopoly on the continent, to become even stronger on the global scale, something that will not only worry Britain but will further complicate matters for China, Russia, and the United States.
Moreover, and as the prospect of a gradual American withdrawal from much of the world under President Donald Trump grows, precisely because security challenges will increase as well, it is important to understand how France will forge “a joint European foreign and defence policy” anchored in the Paris-Berlin axis. In fact, such a development will not please Russia since Macron sincerely believes that Russian President Vladimir Putin “is playing a dangerous foreign policy game” in the Ukraine (and elsewhere), which means that one should anticipate political fireworks to uphold international law.
It is this perception that Macron harbours regarding Syria, for example, where the president-elect favours a French military intervention if Syrian President Bashar Al Assad’s government is found to be responsible for the use of chemical weapons. Of course, Macron insists that any intervention be carried out under the aegis of the UN, where Russia holds a veto power. Yet, the Frenchman has declared this must be used “with precision for cases involving proven risks of mass crimes”. How Paris will now persuade Moscow is the key question even if the Kremlin should not underestimate Macron’s determination to achieve lasting geo-political gains.
Equally important is to know whether the removal of the Al Assad regime from power will continue to be a Macron objective, although few should doubt that pragmatism will prevail. Macron has identified a priority — to combat extremist movements like Daesh (the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant), Jabhat Al Nusra, Hezbollah and others — that is not likely to change, and it is in that perspective that an eventual solution for Syria might well be devised.
Interestingly, and at the height of his masterfully managed campaign, Macron declared that he refused to give the US and Russia, which are deeply opposed on the issue, to decide Syria’s fate — alone. A believer in political dialogue, the French president-elect will probably engage both Washington and Moscow, though it is unclear how effective he will be on this front. Even on the critical Israel-Palestine dispute, and while Macron will insist on dialogue, supporting the security of the first and the legitimacy of the second, backing the two-states solution might not be sufficient because Israel holds most of the cards.
Finally, while Macron criticised his predecessors for aligning France with the Arab Gulf countries, and called for full engagement with Iran without interfering in regional “power games”, reality will necessitate a firm stand on Tehran on the issue of nuclear non-proliferation and continued arms sales to Gulf Cooperation Council states.
A strong believer in “communal history”, Emmanuel Macron has a vision for France that emphasises independence and equilibrium, which will presumably allow him to forge solid ties with everyone. His emphasis on dialogue is certainly commendable as is his passion for resilience. How he will engage equally determined interlocutors will illustrate whether the new French president will succeed precisely where his two predecessors had failed.
Dr. Joseph A. Kechichian is the author of the just-published The Attempt to Uproot Sunni Arab Influence: A Geo-Strategic Analysis of the Western, Israeli and Iranian Quest for Domination (Sussex: 2017).
