"French foreign policy has turned into a precarious boat under Macron" Article by Alternatives Economiques

French magazine Alternatives Economiques has published an article by political scientist Jean-Francois Bayart covering the failed policy of French President Emmanuel Macron. Caliber.Az reprints the piece.

"Under the leadership of Emmanuel Macron, French foreign policy has become a precarious boat. In addition, the immigration law of December 19, 2023, will deal it an even bigger blow. Firstly, because it will weaken the country's economy, which will need 3.9 million foreign workers by 2050, according to Medef. Secondly, because it will weaken France's cultural and academic influence.

Damaged trust

The drastic reduction in the number of visas issued to Maghreb countries has already shattered France's reputation in these states, especially in its main regional partner Morocco. The drop in French language skills among young people has been striking in two years, and the kingdom's rejection of French aid after the September 8 earthquake was a clear indication of the crisis of confidence between Rabat and Paris.

Suspending student and researcher exchanges with Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso in the summer of 2023 as a collective punishment for the former metropolis' recalcitrance was another mistake by France. The new immigration law on foreign students will push the country out of the international market for higher education and creativity - major aspects of globalisation. And now Emmanuel Macron pretends to be concerned about it. Hypocrisy or inconsistency?

The loss of the Maghreb and the Sahel, as some nostalgic imperialists would say, is the price that had to be paid. We do not doubt that other diplomatic and cultural failures will soon follow. What future can there be for a country that closes itself off from foreign students and researchers? But this series of aberrations, in terms of French interests, is just one of many symptoms of the unsustainable nature of Macron's foreign policy since 2017.

Indiscriminate diplomacy

Macron's paternalistic arrogance angered the public in the Sahel and served as a convenient anti-imperialist argument for military regimes. So, like an angry child, he closed the French embassy and consulate in Niamey, the capital of Niger, abandoning his fellow citizens to their fate and sacrificing cultural and economic ties between the two countries. Russia, the US, China and other nations are happy to be rid of their main rival finally.

In the Middle East, Emmanuel Macron's Lebanese epic has turned into a fiasco. The failure of his surreal proposal for an international coalition against Hamas, inspired by the famous philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy, was France's biggest diplomatic humiliation in the last hundred years.

Meanwhile, Macron has left Franco-German relations in ruins, dooming ambitious European projects.

At the heart of his "reserved domain". Emmanuel Macron, who knows little about international politics, has exposed the troubling nature of his rule, which he nonetheless boasts of. It has gone from imperial to imperial, and often grotesque and disgraceful.

Was it not he who, during an official visit to Bern, told the Swiss that one day they would realise that they were Europeans? This caused much ridicule in Switzerland. Fortunately, France has not placed any military bases there, which could have been immediately closed under pressure from angry locals!" - wrote a French political scientist.