‘Dove to Hawk’: What Influenced Macron to Change Stance on Ukraine - Report

Recently, the French president alarmed Europe when he announced that ground operations in Ukraine might be required “at some point”, just days after he met with German and Polish leaders.

On Saturday, a UK news website published a report on French President Emmanual Macron’s changed stance regarding Russia and Kiev. The shift has been a sharp one for Macron, who just two years ago said the West should not “humiliate” Moscow, and should instead try and stay open to finding a diplomatic solution.

“We must not humiliate Russia so that the day when the fighting stops we can build an exit ramp through diplomatic means,” Macron said in an interview in June of 2022.

But the 46-year-old president has changed his tune drastically since then. Macron, who has always had a “fondness for disruptive grandstanding” the report writes, is now faced with an awkward struggle for power with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz who has maintained a more reserved stance compared to his French counterpart.

On Friday, Germany, France and Poland swore to provide more weapons for Ukraine in a shakily gathered summit of the “Weimar Triangle”. But just a day later, the French president said he will ask Russia to observe a cease-fire in Ukraine during this summer’s Olympic Games in Paris as a “message of peace”.

The report spoke to “numerous sources” in the Elysee and the Bundestag regarding Macron’s change from “dove to hawk”. The insiders revealed that Macron is desperate to be viewed as a dominant power both domestically and internationally.

For instance, Germany has said repeatedly that France is not supplying enough weapons to Ukraine. In response, Macron gestured toward Germany’s paltry offer of helmets to Kiev two years ago, and told Scholz to donate Germany’s Taurus missiles to Ukraine after France donated their long-range Scalp missiles. Then on Wednesday, Scholz noted that Germany has sent €7 billion in aid to Ukraine this year, compared to France’s €3 billion.

But Berlin has responded by pointing out that they do not have nuclear weapons like France does, and fears retaliation from Russia.

Still, there are an estimated 20 nuclear weapons stationed at Büchel Air Base in Germany, despite Germany not really “owning” the nuclear weapons. German warplanes are also equipped to launch the US nuclear weapons that are stationed there. However, the use of those weapons are controlled by the US.

Germany has reportedly considered breaking free from US nuclear dependence, should former President Donald Trump win this year’s US presidential election.

And according to Saturday’s report, Germany is now spearheading a European anti-missile shield project using US and Israeli technology, but France has refused to join the project even though Macron is committed to the idea of building the EU’s “strategic autonomy” independent of the US.

And in a way, Macron sees such an act as overstepping his role as the “strategic leader” in Europe, while Germany’s role was to be an “economic leader”.

“The frontiers are now blurred and there are attempts to intrude into each other’s domain,” said the source. And as a result, Macron is now using grandstanding gestures—such as the rogue suggestion to put boots on the ground of Kiev—as a way to reclaim his role as a strategic leader in Europe.

The sources add that Macron reportedly gave Scholz a warning two days before he made the inflammatory remark, but that did not prevent Scholz from feigning shock at the suggestion. The German chancellor, and other Western leaders, rejected the reckless comment.

“He has a taste for transgression,” said a French source close to the president. “There’s a price to pay for spelling out his vision, but he always hopes that the others will end up following him and that history will end up proving him right.”

At the same time, Macron is also trying to push back his political competitors at home; Marine Le Pen’s National Rally is on course to utterly defeat Macron’s centrists in the European Parliament election in June. It is unclear what Le Pen’s current views of Russian President Vladimir Putin are today, but in the past it has been reported that she has long been an admirer and defender of the Russian president.