Comments Emmanuel Macron made to the press aboard France’s presidential jet have drawn attention in Washington, and almost certainly in other capitals. Macron, who visited China last week, made the comments on a flight from Beijing to Guangzhou, and then on the flight from Guangzhou back to Paris.
Some of his comments, which were captured by Politico in a piece for English-speaking audiences, were in line with his characteristically outspoken calls for European “strategic autonomy,” unburdened from American influence. Although Macron doesn’t seem to have mentioned this, it’s worth noting the broader context: The Biden administration has angered French officials by its undercutting of France’s planned sale of submarines to Australia and by passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, parts of which France felt could hurt its own economy.
During the Beijing portion of the trip, Macron and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen had held talks with Xi. In Guangzhou, Macron held a more relaxed meeting with the Chinese leader. French officials told Politico that they discussed Taiwan “intensely.”
Macron’s comments to the reporters traveling with him likely included some remarks that would have aroused even more American outrage than has already been mustered. But the French president’s office cut them out, per an agreement that Politico made in order to get access, as an editorial note at the bottom of the piece states:
As is common in France and many other European countries, the French President’s office, known as the Elysée Palace, insisted on checking and “proofreading” all the president’s quotes to be published in this article as a condition of granting the interview. This violates POLITICO’s editorial standards and policy, but we agreed to the terms in order to speak directly with the French president. POLITICO insisted that it cannot deceive its readers and would not publish anything the president did not say. The quotes in this article were all actually said by the president, but some parts of the interview in which the president spoke even more frankly about Taiwan and Europe’s strategic autonomy were cut out by the Elysée.
The critical words here are “parts of the interview in which the president spoke even more frankly about Taiwan.” The comments that made it through the Macron team’s review process were already quite frank. Macron warned against becoming “just America’s followers” and said that it is not “in our interest to accelerate [a crisis] on Taiwan.”
“The worse thing would be to think that we Europeans must become followers on this topic and take our cue from the U.S. agenda and a Chinese overreaction,” he added.
He also said: “Europeans cannot resolve the crisis in Ukraine; how can we credibly say on Taiwan, ‘watch out, if you do something wrong we will be there’? If you really want to increase tensions that’s the way to do it.”
The upshot is that Macron seems to be weighing in against French assistance to a U.S. effort to respond to Chinese military threats against Taiwan.
So what could Macron have said that would be perceived as even more frank than that? Possibilities include either outright backing Beijing’s claims over Taiwan or musing that China is more determined to seize the country than the West is to defend it from annexation.
Of course, we won’t really know what Macron said unless he or his staff recaps the excised comments publicly or in a leak, or unless journalists present at the press briefing break their agreement. But it’s clear that he was at least more frank about his views on Taiwan than even his comments sharply dissenting from the U.S. position would lead people to believe.