On Saturday, December 7, France may no longer have a government, but it will have Donald Trump. By choosing to honor Notre-Dame for his first trip abroad since his victory on November 5, the American president-elect may be fulfilling, in his own way, the wishes of Emmanuel Macron, who hoped that the cathedral's successful reconstruction would provoke "a shock of hope."

The hope, in this case, would be that of a fruitful meeting between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, should he also choose to come to Paris on Saturday. For the moment, however, the prospect of Trump's return to the Oval Office is more like a shock of chaos. The traditional Washington transition from one administration to the next has been transformed into an explosive period in which, between November 5 and January 20, the date of the future president's inauguration, the world is in the midst of accelerating disorganization. Trump's election and the uncertainty surrounding his diplomatic intentions, a very personal practice of strategic ambiguity, act as a catalyst for the most serious crises of the moment.

By trumpeting that he didn't want to be distracted, once in the White House, by wars that would prevent him from focusing on his real issues, illegal immigration and China, Trump has put the belligerents under pressure. In Ukraine and the Middle East, leaders are trying to anticipate the radical options that Washington might favor in an attempt to put an end to their conflicts.

NATO protection

With its war on Ukraine, Moscow is pushing its advantage, bombing in earnest and using nuclear intimidation at every turn. In Europe, the Kremlin is stepping up hybrid warfare, multiplying acts of sabotage and giving voice to its hardest-line thurifers. Thus, Russian political scientist Sergey Karaganov told daily Le Figaro, that since deterrence no longer works, it must be replaced "by fear": "Yes," he insisted, "it is necessary to lead to escalation. I encourage Russia to move up the ladder of escalation toward deterrence and intimidation. We need to go further to sober up our European neighbors, who have lost their minds. Like a hundred years ago, they are pushing the world toward a world war."

Echoing this, Konstantin Malofeev, an influential oligarch close to Putin, told the Financial Times that if General Keith Kellogg, the special envoy Trump has just appointed to Ukraine, "comes to Moscow with his plan, we take it and then tell him to screw himself, because we don't like any of it. That'd be the whole negotiation. For the talks to be constructive, we need to talk not about the future of Ukraine, but the future of Europe and the world."

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