Brigitte Macron slapping her husband, French President Emmanuel Macron in the face at the door of the presidential airplane is a perfect analogy for his international fortunes. In addition to his continued woes on the domestic front, Macron has suffered a series of defeats resulting from his ill-advised foreign policy decisions. From his deteriorating relationship with President Donald Trump to his selling out to Palestinian terrorists, Macron is rapidly losing his moral compass, therefore eroding French credibility on the world stage.
Macron has gone from having been the one leader to call for an international coalition to fight off Hamas militarily right after the terrorist group massacred, tortured, and raped 1200 Israeli civilians, including 42 French nationals, to being thanked by Hamas for pushing recognition of a Palestinian state. Indeed, despite Macron committing not to recognize Palestine if Hamas didn't free all Israeli hostages; if Hamas wouldn't be disarmed and if the Palestinian Authority wouldn't be reformed, he will do it in September at the UNGA.
But two recent reports have shown Macron’s true nature.
In June 2020 a high-level meeting initiated by France took place in Doha, Qatar, between top French intelligence officials representing President Macron and Hamas leadership including Musa Abu Marzouk and Khaled Meshaal.
French officials told EU-designated terror group Hamas that they did not agree at all with U.S. policy in the Middle East. The French added it was their "pleasure" to meet up, stating that it was part of the historical French support for "the Palestinian cause." The Hamas leadership made it clear that they were undeterred by the "Zionist entity" and that they will continue their "resistance" "until the final victory." The French delegation didn't push back at all.
The second story revealed that thanks to their informers in Gaza, the French intelligence services were aware of a major Hamas attack two years before October 7. Hamas mastermind Yahya Sinwar directly told the French of a major Hamas offensive that would include an invasion of Israel. France also knew that in the summer 2023, Hamas provided weapons to competing Salafi groups and that scores of young Hamas terrorists were training in Lebanon and Syria for the upcoming attack.
Macron’s relationship with Trump is symbolic of the French president losing the plot. During President Trump’s first term, Macron was considered the “Trump whisperer.” Their bromance outwardly flourished while in reality, the two leaders shared few common objectives. Unsurprisingly, things went south. Since Trump returned to the White House, Macron has repeatedly antagonized the U.S. What happened at the recent G7 was particularly telling. After abruptly leaving the summit, President Trump lashed out at Macron:
Publicity seeking President Emmanuel Macron, of France, mistakenly said that I left the G7 Summit, in Canada, to go back to D.C. to work on a 'cease fire' between Israel and Iran. Wrong! (...) Whether purposely or not, Emmanuel always gets it wrong.
After the U.S. hit the Fordo nuclear facility in Iran, Macron described the airstrikes as “illegal.” So much for the support to Israel and the U.S. that are doing “the dirty work for all of us,” as German Chancellor Friedrich Merz rightly said. Macron knows better than anyone that Merz is correct, because since 1979 France has been among the top enemies of the bloody regime in Tehran despite harboring Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1978-1979. France failed to protect the Shah’s last prime minister, Shapour Bakhtiar, who was assassinated by the Ayatollah’s agents in 1991 in a Paris suburb. In the 1980s, Iran, through its main proxy, Hezb’allah, carried out terror attacks in France and Lebanon against French interests. France’s dedication to western secular values made it a target of Islamist terror attacks time and again.
For the past 46 years, Iran has used kidnapping to exert pressure on France, including the “arrest” of French tourist Lennart Monterlos in Iran just a few weeks ago. Since Paris is actually terrified that Tehran could decide to perpetrate terror attacks this summer in France or against French interests around the world, Macron does not want to antagonize the mullahs, but seems to have no issue with verbally attacking the U.S. and Israel.
No doubt Macron was furious at being upstaged by Israel and then by the U.S. when the “12-day-war” to stop Tehran from attaining a nuclear weapon compelled the French president to postpone a UN conference, co-sponsored by Saudi Arabia, to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and to push for a two-state solution while Hamas still rules parts of Gaza. The Trump Administration had lobbied countries not to attend the conference, warning that nations that would take “anti-Israel actions” would face diplomatic consequences from the U.S.
Not only does Macron increasingly present himself as an opportunist chasing headlines with no clear principles or vision, he is also becoming more dangerous by the day by undermining not only U.S. priorities and interests in the Middle East, but also the West as a whole.
Olivier Guitta is the Managing Director of GlobalStrat, a security and geopolitical risk consulting company for companies and governments. Olivier tweets @OlivierGuitta
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