The war in Ukraine and its effects are forcing the newly re-elected French president, Emmanuel Macron, to reshape his foreign policy in the region. As an inflation boom and energy crisis loom, Macron must also reconsider his strategies for Russia, the Balkans and non-EU states such as Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia.

At home, President Emmanuel Macron recently obtained a rock-solid political victory, whatever the pundits might say to minimise his feat. The incumbent managed to be elected for a second time, whereas his two direct predecessors (and political patrons) Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande, failed even to make it to the second round of their second presidential races. Moreover, Macron defeated Marine Le Pen (for the second time) by a large, increased and indisputable majority.

France and Central and Eastern Europe do not currently possess a very high-profile political relationship. Nevertheless, the region is quickly becoming an essential part of Paris’s foreign policy.

Connections between the Kremlin and Europe’s far right have become a topic of great debate in recent years. Despite this, the far right’s extensive support for Armenia in last year’s conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh largely went unnoticed by the continent’s media.

An interview with Cédric Gras, French writer and former director of Alliance Française in Donetsk. Interviewer: Clémence Lavialle

CLÉMENCE LAVIALLE: Could you tell me how it happened that you started your career in Russia?

CÉDRIC GRAS: Well, I never had a clear career plan. Therefore, I started my professional life by doing what I had always wanted to do – travelling and climbing mountains. I was able to make a decent life out of it. But to make a living out of it, I knew that I had to tell a story through reports, writings, and photographs. In this way, I try to show the world in different forms: academic and more artistic. I try to tell the story of today's world.

Interview with Alexandra Goujon, a professor of political science at the University of Burgundy. Interviewer: Clémence Lavialle.

France has a passionate relationship with Russia: the French love Russia…but they also love to hate Russia. This has been the case at least since the Napoleonic Wars, the Berezina trauma, and the unexpected alliance of 1892 between the young French Republic and tsarist Russia. Today, those contradictory passions are very much alive: in French political debate, Russia has acquired an importance that goes far beyond foreign policy.

When Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the former foreign minister and now federal president of Germany, once tried to describe Germany’s role in Europe; he called it the “chief facilitating officer”. France’s newfound role under Macron now seems to be that of Europe’s “disrupter-in-chief”. That these two roles do not necessarily match is no surprise.

In the clash of narratives between Russia and NATO states, Moscow has clearly gained an upper hand. Russian success stems not only from the fact that the Kremlin has been able to send a much clearer and more coherent message than the Alliance, but also because NATO states do not have one narrative, or counter-narrative.
One of the central concerns when analysing international security and its history is how to explain certain events and their impact on international politics. For policy-makers and societies it is crucial to define “who we are” and “what kind of world order we want”. The passing decade has been marked by a return to a crisis between the West and Russia (sometimes referred to as the New Cold War), with conflict over Russian aggression in Ukraine being the most striking example.

External actions of local governments are developed and regulated based on the competences vested in them by the national laws. While local authorities occasionally tend to ignore these regulations, they have to be aware of the consequences of their actions and bear in mind the circumstances abroad that should be handled with extreme caution.

Emmanuel Macron wants to embody the return of a dynamic Europe, even if to envisage a multi-speed Europe around a state capable of stimulating a dynamic. To take the lead in this movement, he must show that France is credible on economic matters.