For the French political elite, this can be a second of scarcely hid glee. The Trump administration’s deep hostility towards Europe—together with the imposition of steep new tariffs, verbal assaults on European values, open assist for far-right events, and threats to invade Greenland—vindicates the imaginative and prescient of a strategically autonomous continent held by generations of French leaders. It was French President Charles de Gaulle, in any case, who repeatedly expressed his perception within the Sixties that it was France’s mission to liberate Western Europe from its function as a de-facto U.S. protectorate after World Struggle II.
For President Emmanuel Macron, “this idea of sovereignty, which simply seven years in the past could have appeared very French, has regularly turn into European.” French policymakers see it as the conclusion of a long-held dream, one in every of a European Union in France’s picture—now not aligned with Washington, fiercely protecting of its corporations, and unconstrained in its authorities spending. On this reimagining, Paris is working beneath the guise of strategic autonomy to make the EU a higher France.
For the French political elite, this can be a second of scarcely hid glee. The Trump administration’s deep hostility towards Europe—together with the imposition of steep new tariffs, verbal assaults on European values, open assist for far-right events, and threats to invade Greenland—vindicates the imaginative and prescient of a strategically autonomous continent held by generations of French leaders. It was French President Charles de Gaulle, in any case, who repeatedly expressed his perception within the Sixties that it was France’s mission to liberate Western Europe from its function as a de-facto U.S. protectorate after World Struggle II.
For President Emmanuel Macron, “this idea of sovereignty, which simply seven years in the past could have appeared very French, has regularly turn into European.” French policymakers see it as the conclusion of a long-held dream, one in every of a European Union in France’s picture—now not aligned with Washington, fiercely protecting of its corporations, and unconstrained in its authorities spending. On this reimagining, Paris is working beneath the guise of strategic autonomy to make the EU a higher France.
Exhibit A is the combat inside the EU over how the continent’s rearmament ought to proceed now that Washington has lastly cajoled NATO allies to spend a minimal of 5 p.c of GDP on protection. Most of Europe—from Germany, to the Nordic international locations, to the japanese frontier states—sees an pressing must fill their arsenals to keep at bay the rising risk of battle with Russia. That makes them keen to purchase from whoever can ship the required weapons the quickest, no matter whether or not these weapons are manufactured within the EU, Britain, South Korea, or the US.
France, however, sees the brand new spending targets—and the joint EU fund that has been instituted to assist finance them—as an enormous pot of cash that it could actually use to nurture its protection corporations. The launch of the Safety Motion for Europe fund—a 150 billion euro (round $173 billion) program financed by EU borrowing to allow joint procurement by member states—was marred by France’s fierce resistance to permitting any of the funds for use for getting weapons from non-EU corporations. At France’s behest, even the UK’s world-class arms makers are excluded from the funding.
Equally, France held the much more necessary European Defence Industrial Programme (EDIP) hostage by looking for to exclude all non-EU corporations—even when their manufacturing relies within the EU and employs European employees. The ultimate compromise was that, to ensure that a purchase order to be eligible for EDIP financing, at the very least 65 p.c of the elements by worth should originate within the EU or sure related international locations. Even this compromise drew dissent from 10 member states that sought higher flexibility to purchase non-European weapons instantly.
Paris has argued that Europe wants its protection trade to be fully unbiased from the US. This isn’t unreasonable, given the instance of the Biden and Trump administrations severely proscribing Kyiv’s permitted use of U.S. weapons, at the price of the lives of 1000’s of Ukrainian troopers and civilians. What if Russia assaults an EU nation whereas a Kremlin-friendly U.S. president sits within the White Home and, say, turns off the software program working on U.S.-made weapons? The issue is that build up Europe’s atrophied protection trade to ship on the required pace and scale is a long-term challenge. Outdoors France, nearly each EU nation envisions doing each—build up native manufacturing capability whereas additionally shopping for what’s wanted from different suppliers now. Whereas some international locations are definitely nervous about shopping for U.S. weapons, few outdoors France see a must boycott the U.Ok.’s world-class arms makers, as Macron would love Europe to do.
For Paris, rearmament has turn into the Malicious program to lastly understand its objective of huge joint borrowing, which it has spent a long time advocating for—and, finally, the removing of constraints on French state spending not solely on protection however in all different areas, as properly.
In any case, France is a rustic the place the biggest events in parliament need to decrease the retirement age to 62, at the price of immense new outlays for the general public pension and well being care techniques—and the place Macron is busy reassuring voters that protection spending can meet the brand new NATO goal of 5 p.c of GDP with none want to boost French taxes.
Macron’s wants are huge and pressing. France’s public debt relative to GDP is on monitor to hit an astonishing 118 p.c in 2026 and to exceed that of crisis-ridden Greece by the tip of this decade. The final time Paris ran a funds surplus was 1974. With the highest tax burden within the EU, it’s merely not doable to “increase taxes since they’re already very excessive,” as former French Transport Minister Clément Beaune delicately put it final June. So as to add insult to damage, the monetary markets now view France as a worse credit score danger than Greece or Spain, which had been near default through the Eurozone debt disaster within the early 2010s.
As an alternative of acknowledging spending constraints, French proposals invariably give attention to avoiding political selections, ideally with the assistance of “a massive EU debt fund.” In fact, all European governments face the issue of getting to inform voters accustomed to perpetual peace and rising welfare states how rising protection outlays will probably be financed. However the French try to keep away from tough selections by free using on the grandest of scales is exclusive.
And therein lies the center of Macron’s imaginative and prescient for Europe: exporting French financial weak spot and overspending to the remainder of the EU beneath the guise of European integration. For French leaders, “strategic autonomy” in protection has thus turn into a euphemism for a complete basket of insurance policies they’ve been advocating for years: excluding world competitors, subsidizing trade, and forcing different EU members to just accept joint borrowing in order that France doesn’t have to boost taxes. It’s the outdated Paris playbook recharged by Trumpism and up to date for an age of battle.
Few—if any—of the EU’s different 26 members share Paris’ enthusiasm for a French-style, extremely backed, and walled-off Europe. Fairly than ushering in an period of French-led integration, Macron’s relentless push for an unbiased Europe is deepening the continent’s divisions.
Central and Jap European international locations discover French protectionism significantly aggravating. These states have lengthy seen purchases of U.S.-made fighter jets and different weapons as an insurance coverage coverage that helps preserve Washington on their facet. These days, South Korea has emerged as one other vital army provider for Poland, Romania, and different international locations within the area.
That has not saved Macron from pushing forward. His newest tactic is an try to strike a grand discount with Germany to win assist for his agenda. Particularly, it entails the extension of France’s nuclear umbrella over Germany—though it’s unclear what that can imply in observe—in return for Berlin’s assent to extra joint EU borrowing and a considerable loosening of Eurozone limits on debt and deficits. By exchanging France’s nuclear deterrent for Germany’s deep pockets, this bomb-for-debt deal would paper over France’s financial weak spot.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has his personal causes for facilitating France’s technique. He faces a stagnating German financial system hit particularly arduous by U.S. tariffs and Chinese language overproduction; surging assist for far-right populists; and a want for daring motion after 20 years of malaise through the Scholz and Merkel eras. The French plan entails tying Germany right into a sequence of centralizing initiatives wrapped in a European flag. Paris views every part from telecommunications, synthetic intelligence, and cloud computing to aerospace and protection as being ripe for the creation of European champions—ideally French or French-controlled. By relying on Merz’s must act, France seeks to sideline different EU member states which may oppose its agenda.
A grand Franco-German discount that hurts nearly everybody else has a historic precedent, after all. The final nice Franco-German trade-off was French President Francois Mitterrand’s acquiescence to Germany’s 1990 reunification in return for German Chancellor Helmut Kohl accepting the creation of the euro to interchange the sturdy German mark and different European currencies. Mitterrand believed that “with out a widespread foreign money we’re all already subordinate to the Germans’ will.” That foreign money union stays a key driver of political discord and financial stagnation in Europe. Regardless of circulating for greater than 20 years, the euro is a part of an unfinished and structurally unstable financial union, whose crises have imposed profound financial and social prices on international locations from Eire to Greece.
Identical to it did in 1990, France is now looking for to export its financial weak spot to the remainder of Europe. The long run outcome will doubtless be comparable: a half-finished, inherently unstable, and Europeanized safety infrastructure mirroring the EU’s incomplete foreign money framework.
Whether or not or not Macron can get Merz to come back on board, France’s persistent perception that its personal priorities must be Europe’s has alienated most of its EU companions. Missing financial credibility, France has turn into simply one other mismanaged member state looking for an EU bailout to keep away from a looming debt disaster.
Unwilling or unable to construct the required relationships with EU companions—significantly the japanese front-line states—and form the next compromises, France is retaining Europe weak and break up by its divisions. Europe’s foes in Moscow, Beijing, and Washington will probably be all too glad to take advantage of them within the coming years.
