Home » France wants to dialogue with everyone but must avoid acrobatics – Pierre Haski

France wants to dialogue with everyone but must avoid acrobatics – Pierre Haski

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France wants to dialogue with everyone but must avoid acrobatics – Pierre Haski

“Who would want Turkey to be the only power in the world to talk to Russia?” French President Emmanuel Macron asked on September 1. Macron referred to Turkey and its president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, in a plea in which he pleaded the cause of his special relationship with Vladimir Putin, which is not to everyone’s liking.

The French president delivered a two-hour speech to the French ambassadors gathered in Paris for their annual conference. In front of the same audience, in 2019, Macron had promoted his dialogue with Putin, whom he had recently received at the Fort de Brégançon, the summer residence of the French presidents. Faced with general skepticism, Macron had urged diplomats not to follow the “deep state” (an expression that surprised many) that resisted.

Three years later, the situation is profoundly different, starting with the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. And in the meantime, the intense dialogue between Macron and Putin has not brought about significant changes.

Personal relationship
But then why go on? It is in this perspective that Turkey becomes useful for Macron. Despite his country being part of NATO, Turkish President Erdoğan is the only one to be listened to by Putin. The only significant negotiations between the Russians and the Ukrainians took place in Istanbul in March, and it is Turkey that has maneuvered to lift the Russian blockade on Ukrainian cereals.

Erdoğan has become an indispensable interlocutor, the “facilitator” of dialogue as defined by a diplomat convinced that the Turkish president has played his cards best. For years Erdoğan has had a personal relationship with Putin, of which he speaks the same autocratic language.

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This Turkish “monopoly” annoys Paris. France believes that Europe has everything to lose by remaining on the sidelines of a relationship with Moscow that sooner or later it will have to reconnect, regardless of the outcome of the conflict. This is the message sent by Macron on September 1st.

Macron addresses both French public opinion and other European countries, which shocked by the barbarism of war had not imagined being able to dialogue with the person responsible for the conflict. The French president (and the ambassadors with him) asked for permission to dialogue with everyone, especially those who disagree with France.

This logic of the “negotiation with the devil”, to take up the title of a book by the French historian Pierre Grosser, is considered by Macron to be a diplomatic principle. France must be a “balancing power”, that is, faithful to her alliances – Europe, NATO, the United States – but not aligned or “vassalized”.

Such a balance is not easy to achieve in an increasingly tense, polarized and split world. Compared to Russia or China, Macron wants to make clear commitments without interrupting the dialogue and collaborating on some topics, such as the climate crisis. But care must be taken to prevent this balance from becoming a balancing act. The global situation does not allow this.

Translation by Andrea Sparacino

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