It was the kind of hero’s welcome French President Emmanuel Macron rarely — if ever— receives at home these days.
Weaving his way to the lectern at the United Nations General Assembly on Monday, the French president seemed more relaxed than he had in months as he paused to joke with Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen.
And he appeared to bask in the lengthy applause that followed after the end of his roughly 30-minute address, during which he made a passionate bid to “do justice to the Palestinian people and thus to recognize the State of Palestine.”
For the embattled 47-year-old leader, who’s mired in an annus horribilis of unpopularity and crashing governments in Paris, his moment in New York was more than a welcome break from the constant hissing of far-left and far-right opponents at home.
It was Macron’s chance to follow in the footsteps of Gaullist politicians who came before him and used the U.N. to great effect as the stage for statements of bold independence from the United States (and, in this case, Israel).
Recall Dominique de Villepin’s sternly worded address in the U.N. Security Council back in 2003, when the then-foreign minister criticized Washington’s march to war in Iraq and asserted that Paris would take no part in it.
His show of defiance remains a high point for many French people who felt de Villepin had bravely channeled General Charles de Gaulle’s defiant, go-it-alone spirit in the face of a more powerful ally.
And it was undoubtedly in the back of Macron and his aides’ minds as they patiently orchestrated Monday’s moment — which was many months in the making and involved dozens of diplomatic huddles across several countries to coordinate formal recognition of a Palestinian state on Monday.
No matter that de Villepin’s speech didn’t cause Washington to reconsider its plans to invade Iraq. And no matter that — as Portugal’s foreign minister told POLITICO on Sunday — the joint statehood push isn’t likely to change facts on the ground in Gaza or the West Bank overnight, or perhaps ever.
The point was to offer a defiant counterpart to U.S. President Donald Trump, who rejects a two-state solution, and his ally Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Unlike de Villepin 22 years ago, when the U.N. was still seen as a functioning international organization, Macron didn’t go for the jugular.
The windup to his recognition of a Palestinian state was full of friendly words for Israel and condemnations of Hamas terrorism. And at no point did he mention the elephant in the room — Trump and his support for Netanyahu.
But that won’t diminish the irritation factor for Trump, whose aides have made no secret of their displeasure with Macron.
“Reckless” is how Secretary of State Marco Rubio dubbed the statehood push, while other administration officials blasted the move as “dumb” and pointless in conversations with POLITICO. Netanyahu has been harsher, accusing Macron of rewarding terrorism and threatening to shut down France’s consulate in Jerusalem in retaliation.
As Macron spoke Monday, Israel’s spot in the General Assembly stood noticeably empty.
A certain idea of France
For a president accustomed to negative headlines, the New York speech was a rare reprieve from the day-to-day negativity in France.
Radio and TV carried blanket coverage of the U.N. conference, while the center-left Le Monde daily, business newspaper Les Echos and the left-wing Libération all topped their homepages with blaring headlines about the president’s Palestinian statehood push (the latter paper going so far as to brand it a “historic day”).
Only the right-wing Le Figaro daily, France’s No. 2 paper owned by the Dassault Group, pooh-poohed the moment by placing its Macron story below a site-topper on the winner of this year’s Ballon d’Or football award, Ousmane Dembélé.
Sadly for Macron, that may be as good as it gets three years into his second term in power.
As much as the French may enjoy reviving the ghost of Gaullism, one good day is unlikely to resurrect the presidency of a leader who has cycled through five prime ministers in the past 15 months, and whose popularity score registered at a dismal 17 percent in a poll published over the weekend.
Before naming Sébastien Lecornu as his latest head of government, Macron’s aides were forced to deny he was considering stepping down from the presidency mid-term.
Not even de Villepin was ready to give Macron a thumbs-up for his performance in New York — the ex-foreign minister bashed the incumbent for his “inaction” over Gaza in a radio interview.
But that’s the thing about Gaullism: it isn’t about winning, or even being popular.
De Villepin never quite regained the luster he had in 2003. And de Gaulle himself famously left power in 1968 in the face of huge student protests — which he said at the time was the only honorable thing to do.
The same goes for Macron. The French won’t necessarily fall back into love with their president after New York. But they might regain a small measure of respect for him, or at least for the “certain idea of France” — to borrow de Gaulle’s phrase — that Macron briefly embodied in New York.
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