As in Lebanon in 2020, when he was the first foreign leader to visit Beirut after the port explosion, many thought he would rush to kyiv following the withdrawal of Russian forces from the capital’s outskirts in late March.
But instead, the first head of a G7 country to walk the streets of kyiv with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr ZelenskyHe was the British Prime Minister Boris Johnsonwho in a surprise trip on Saturday announced more military aid for Ukraine.
The day before, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyenand the head of diplomacy of the European Union (EU), Joseph Borrelltook the same train route from neighboring Poland to promise Ukraine a “European future”.
“Macron’s hands are tied. It’s typically his kind of trip, but he’s campaigning. It would be seen as an instrumentalization of foreign policy for electoral purposes“, according to François Heisbourg, of the Fondation pour la Recherche Stratégique (FRS).
“Except for a calamity of special scope, such as the massive use of chemical weapons against civilians, it is difficult for him to take the initiative” in Ukraine until the second round of the presidential election on April 24, this analyst explained to AFP.
Emmanuel Macron led the first round of the presidential election on Sunday, but the “return match” on April 24 against Marine Le Pen, whom he already won in 2017, is announced to be open according to polls.
Although at first his presidential aura was reinforced by the war and his attempt to mediate between Ukraine and Russia, he finally suffered from a late entry into the campaign, whose main topic of debate was the purchasing power.
His rival thus presented himself as the defender of the popular classes, in a context of rising energy prices and inflation in France, forcing him to go down to the electoral mud to debate the main concerns of the French.
“The immediate impact of the conflict has been to raise energy prices and create concerns about purchasing power. This has played into the favor of Marine Le Pen’s programme,” according to Michel Duclos, a special adviser at the Institut Montaigne think tank.
But Marine Le Pen is also in the spotlight for her ties to Russia. Your president Vladimir Putin He received it at the Kremlin in 2017 and his party continues to repay a loan of some nine million euros ($9.8 million) to a Russian creditor.
The president-candidate thus accuses her of “complacency” with Putin and of being “dependent on Russia.” All this in a context in France in which, according to former ambassador Duclos, “74%” of citizens support Ukraine.
The heiress of the National Front recalls that Russia is a great country in the concert of nations and that the president himself spoke more with the Russian president, even after the start of the Russian offensive in Ukraine on February 24.
Emmanuel Macron “went very far with his hand outstretched to Russia, but never gave in on essentials” and he always aligned himself with the Europeans, the expert notes, for whom the centrist could thus capture a part of the Russophile electorate.
For her part, Le Pen could judge the trump card of the purchasing power impact of the sanctions imposed on Russia, but this could come back to haunt her if new images emerge of atrocities perpetrated by the Russian army in Ukraine.
Source: Ambito
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