The Great Erasure: Macron’s France and the Wars of the East

Appearances had to be saved. France had to be seen to matter still in the great affairs of the world, including in the wars of the Middle East — wars at once so near and so vital to us.

So last Friday, Emmanuel Macron, flanked by his partner Keir Starmer, revived the formula of the “coalition of the willing,” first launched — to little effect — over the war in Ukraine. This time, the Paris conference, which brought together by video no fewer than thirty “non-belligerent” heads of state, was supposed to focus on “securing the Strait of Hormuz” — though only once the fighting was over. What no one foresaw was that this conference, designed to show European resolve, would be overtaken by events on the ground and would, in the end, confirm Europe’s complete impotence.

By a fortunate coincidence, at that very moment Iran, satisfied with the ten-day ceasefire signed the previous day over Lebanon, announced the “full” reopening of the Strait of Hormuz for the duration of the truce. The news was immediately welcomed by Donald Trump, who nonetheless kept his own blockade in place pending an agreement on Iran’s denuclearization.

The problem is that the sequence of events itself shows the extent to which France, like its European partners, has been quite literally erased from the wars of the East, reduced to the role of spectator-commentator in an extremely grave crisis that nevertheless concerns it directly.

The fragile truce negotiated with Tehran through Islamabad was thus, like the war itself, the result of a decision taken by Trump — and by Trump alone — without the slightest consultation with his European allies. The ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel, for its part, had also been prepared in Washington two days earlier, at the “historic” meeting of the two countries’ ambassadors chaired by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Its announcement the following day likewise stemmed from the intense pressure Trump exerted on Netanyahu, even though the latter, supported by Israeli public opinion, was determined to fight on until Hezbollah had been fully eliminated.

The great erasure of France and Europe, relative to the United States, has therefore been publicly recorded on both fronts. On Iran, France has joined Spain in a posture of militant neutrality, even prohibiting the US Air Force from overflying its territory or using its air bases.

This position is more than questionable. French military facilities in the Emirates have been attacked by Iran; one of our soldiers was killed in Iraq by a drone fired by a Shiite militia controlled by Iran; and another, serving with UNIFIL, was killed — the day after the Paris meeting — by Hezbollah in Lebanon. That is to say nothing of the economic consequences of Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz; of the fact that Tehran possesses an arsenal of potentially nuclear-capable missiles able to reach Paris and other European capitals; or of the hostage-taking and terrorist acts carried out in Europe by the same Iranian regime.

Macron’s insistence on France’s “purely defensive” posture may well exasperate Trump, but it does nothing to deter the aggressor. One can understand, given the — shall we say erratic — nature of the American president, why it may be wiser to keep some distance from certain of his geopolitical choices. But neutrality is hardly the best way to shape the course of events, especially when those events concern us directly. Is such neutrality not, above all, an admission of the country’s military weakness — and indeed of Europe’s — as illustrated by the true-false “update” of the 2024–2030 Military Programming Law, hamstrung by a lack of funding and with most acquisitions pushed back to 2035?

As for Lebanon, so dear to France, everyone has now been able to gauge the emptiness of Macron’s lectures on democracy to Beirut’s political class in 2020, and of his repeated calls for a ceasefire — ignored by Hezbollah and now inaudible in Israel, given the deterioration of our relations with the Jewish state. To have influence in such a situation, one must be respected by both sides. Macron’s France no longer is.

Everyone has their own idea of reopening. While the “coalition of the willing” was meeting to unblock Hormuz, the French government was busy unblocking the shops of bakers and florists on May 1. The day before, the newly elected mayor of La Courneuve, in front of the cameras, unfurled a Palestinian flag on the façade of his town hall, just as the Yadan bill criminalizing antisemitism was being buried in the National Assembly. The very next day, Tehran announced that the Strait of Hormuz would be blocked once again.

Pierre Lellouche — 17/4/26