Emmanuel Macron’s vision of a more muscular Europe is coming true
But his allies disagree on its strategies and goals
It was a cautious but hopeful French president who took his seat in the beige-trimmed aircraft office, bound from Moscow to Kyiv on February 8th 2022. The previous night Emmanuel Macron had spent over five strikingly socially distanced hours seated opposite Vladimir Putin at a table the length of a shipping container.
This article appeared in the International section of the print edition under the headline “Perpetual motion”
From the March 11th 2023 edition
Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents
Explore the edition
America’s self-isolating president
No, Donald Trump’s Putin-wooing is not like Nixon going to China
Can Europe confront Vladimir Putin’s Russia on its own?
An independent army, air force and nuclear bomb would come at a high price
Australia prepares for a lonelier, harsher world
The country has long relied on America for security and China for its prosperity. Those two pillars are wobbling
Will it be Ukraine today, Taiwan tomorrow?
How Donald Trump’s about-turn in Europe will affect Asia
Donald Trump is junking the transatlantic alliance
Europe has been left scrambling after an attack on the partnership that kept the peace for nearly 80 years
China’s stunning new campaign to turn the world against Taiwan
Seventy countries have recently backed “all Chinese efforts” to take the island