“Madness is doing the same thing over and over again,” the adage says, “and expecting different results.” How else can one describe the effort of French President Emmanuel Macron to end the Russian invasion of Ukraine by constantly seeking a new compromise with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin?
Aside from confirming the well-established fact that Putin is a malevolent and bad-faith actor, there is not much new to learn from the transcript of a telephone conversation between Macron and Putin, held four days before the invasion. The text has been made public as part of a television documentary authorized by the Elysée, in hopes of polishing Macron’s credentials as a global negotiator.
However, this is not the impression one has of the French “Jupiterian” president. Putin, punishing Macron, is angry over Ukraine’s “coup” in 2014, in which “people were burned alive.” Instead of defying nonsense, Macron assures Putin that “he is doing it [his] better push “the Ukrainians and try to attract him to stay at the negotiating table with a view to an individual meeting with President Biden in Geneva.
A transcript of a conversation between Macron and Putin that took place four days before the invasion has been published. AFP via Getty Images
The rest, as they say, is history. The puzzle, however, has been Macron’s willingness to talk to Putin and be humiliated by him over and over again, even after this demonstrably unsuccessful experience. In fact, Macron recently mentioned a “hundred-hour” conversation he had had with Putin since December.
For what purpose?
The most charitable way to understand Macron’s strategy is through the figure of his mentor, the philosopher Paul Ricoeur, from whom he borrowed his inclination to synthesize seemingly irreconcilable positions and lines of action.
Macron’s own political movement, LREM, and his candidacy were a way to go beyond the political right and left. In 2017 and this year, he defeated populist candidates in the presidential election while also being a populist disruptor. He wants a state that protects workers and at the same time promotes, albeit with contradictory results, the liberalization of the ossified labor markets of France.
Putin spent most of the rogue conversation about the 2014 “coup” in Ukraine. SPUTNIK / AFP via Getty Images The war in Ukraine will probably require a political agreement. AP
The philosophy of “at the same time” – “at the same time” – places France in the position of a supposedly impartial and trusted mediator in the current war and a major supplier of military equipment in Ukraine. Just as Macron pontificated about the dangers of “humiliating Russia” to “build an exit ramp by diplomatic means,” the Caesar shells provided by France were making a real difference in defense efforts in the Donbas.
However, a statesman should not allow any theory, however sophisticated or elegant, to blind him to reality. For anyone unfamiliar with continental philosophy, it was obvious that Macron’s initial attempt to reach Putin through the high-profile summit in Versailles in 2017 was a dead end. Instead of learning from a first mistake, the French leader insisted that everything that happened in the West’s deteriorating relationship with Russia was a key, ready for his Ricoeurian hammer.
Eastern Europe is not a seminar room of the Sorbonne. There is no clever way to “overcome” a confrontation with a bully trapped in his own worldview driven by the ideology that seeks to restore Mother Russia, long humiliated by the West, to its rightful place by trampling. the freedom and self-determination of their neighbors. The only language that harassers understand is one of hard, uncompromising power.
Yes, Russia’s war against Ukraine will eventually end, and will likely involve a political deal, and perhaps even a handshake, with Putin. What Macron’s philosophy doesn’t understand is that the timing of this agreement will only come after the basic outlines of this settlement have been decided on the battlefield.
Today, one and only one consideration should guide the actions of France, as well as those of other Western allies: the better Ukraine does in the current war, the stronger it will be (and the collective West) at the table. negotiations.
Dalibor Rohac is a senior member of the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC. Twitter: @DaliborRohac.