‘100 Hours of Phone Talks With Putin’: How Has Macron’s ‘Mediatory’ Foray Into Ukraine Crisis Fared?

On Saturday, French President Emmanuel Macron suggested the West should consider giving Russia security guarantees if negotiations on ending the Ukraine conflagration resume. However, the president's remarks triggered a backlash from the Kiev regime and its Baltic allies.

A group of Baltic states along with other European nations have reportedly made a diplomatic representation, known as a "demarche," to France over remarks made by President Emmanuel Macron on December 3 regarding security guarantees for Russia.

During an interview with French TV station TF1 recorded during his state visit to the US, Macron said that he and his counterpart Joe Biden sought to flesh out “the security architecture in which we want to live tomorrow.”

"This means that one of the essential points we must address - as President (Vladimir) Putin has always said - is the fear that NATO comes right up to its doors and the deployment of weapons that could threaten Russia," Macron said.

"That topic will be part of the topics for peace, so we need to prepare what we are ready to do, how we protect our allies and member states, and how to give guarantees to Russia the day it returns to the negotiating table," he added.

The words set off an avalanche of backlash for Emmanuel Macron, both from Ukraine and a smattering of states that keenly support the Kiev regime.

The formal demarche in response to Macron's remarks was supported by the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, along with Poland and Slovakia, with the Czech Republic, currently holding the EU Council rotating presidency, helping organize the formal expression of disapproval, according to media reports. The Czech Republic distributed the draft demarche to EU members in their capitals, diplomatic sources were cited as saying.

Also referred to as a “non-paper,” it purportedly listed various aspects of cooperation with Russia, citing documents such as the 1997 Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security between NATO and the Russian Federation, and the December, 2021 draft US-Russia and NATO-Russia agreements regarding the guarantees that Moscow sought.

The finalized demarche was reportedly delivered to the French Foreign Ministry's director of continental Europe on December 12.

This is far from the first time that Emmanuel Macron has been on the receiving end of backlash over his stance regarding everything from sanctions on Moscow to possible ways of resolving the Ukraine conflict.

'Mediatory Role'

Since Russia started its special military operation in Ukraine on February 24, the French leader has attempted to try on for size the role of a mediator between the Kremlin and the Kiev authorities. At the same time, it should be noted that Emmanuel Macron both faced a presidential election in April 2022, and has been driven by his own political ambitions, such as becoming the new de-facto "EU leader," especially after the resignation of former German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

At the start of 2022, Emmanuel Macron urged fellow members of the European Union to put their heads together and come up with proposals for a new security deal with Russia based on a "frank dialogue" with Moscow. The French leader called for a "new stability and security order," as his country took over presidency of the Council of the European Union in January.

Russia earlier delivered a pair of draft security treaties to the US and NATO designed to dramatically reduce tensions between Moscow and the Western bloc. The documents, released publicly by the Russian Foreign Ministry, proposed legally binding commitments by each side not to deploy troops, equipment, warships, missile systems, and aircraft in areas where they may be seen as a threat to the other side, and asked Washington to pledge not to continue NATO’s eastward expansion, including to Ukraine. The document also asked parties to explicitly affirm that they do not consider one another adversaries.

However, in January, NATO and Washington rejected the proposals, and stressed that the bloc’s “open door” policy would not change.

Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) gestures during a joint press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron in Moscow, on February 7, 2022.

© THIBAULT CAMUS

Macron proceeded to visit Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow in February, spending over five hours locked in talks, and later saying that they had been able to find “points of convergence” and determined that it was “up to us to agree, jointly, concrete and specific measures to stabilize the situation and to de-escalate tensions.”

“There is still time to preserve peace,” Macron said at the time.

On February 24, Russia launched a military operation in Ukraine after the breakaway republics of Donetsk and Lugansk requested help to defend them from attacks by Ukrainian troops, resulting in several waves of anti-Russian sanctions.

From the outset of the new spiral of the Ukraine conflict, Macron and Putin repeatedly held telephone linkups on the matter. The French leader admitted in June that he had spent some 100 hours in such conversations with his Russian counterpart.

"I have lost track of the conversations that I have had with Vladimir Putin since December. About 100 hours in total," Macron told French media, reiterating his opinion that the role of Paris in the conflict was as a "mediating power."

'Sanctions Warning'

As European countries followed in Washington's footsteps and drummed up package after package of sanctions targeting Moscow over its Ukraine operation, oblivious of their potential to backfire, and clamored for an embargo on Russian gas and oil, French President Emmanuel Macron warned of the dire consequences the continent might face.

"We will not see the consequences of this [sanctions against Russian energy resources] in the spring and summer of 2022 [as gas storages have been replenished], but next winter, we will feel them if there is no more Russian gas," Macron said in an interview.

Emmanuel Macron also faced flack for insisting on June 3 that it was important not to humiliate Russia "so that the day the fighting stops, we can build a way out through diplomatic channels."

'Not France's Method'

The French leader also refused to characterize Russia's military operation in Ukraine as “genocide,” noting the need to be careful with such terms. It is up to lawyers, not politicians, to qualify Russian actions, said Macron.

In June, Emmanuel Macron refused to designate Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism because that was not "France's method."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky proposed the designation in a social media post, claiming that Russia was targeting civilian infrastructure. The Russian Defense Ministry has repeatedly denied this and similar allegations.

"As to the designation as a terrorist state I want to make it clear that it is not France's method... The issue of designation is up to judges," Macron told reporters.

In October, the French president traveled to Vatican City to meet Pope Francis, with the ongoing security crisis in Ukraine being the focal point of discussions. According to French media, the French president asked the pope to personally reach out to Vladimir Putin and Joe Biden to help resolve the conflict.

"We need the United States to sit down at the negotiating table to advance the peace process in Ukraine," Macron said, speaking to reporters after his visit to the Vatican.

Pointing to the relationship of trust between Pope Francis and Biden, who is a Catholic, Macron suggested that the Pontiff "can influence him so that the United States resumes its involvement in resolving the crises in Haiti and Ukraine."

Commenting on Macron's appeal on Tuesday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia is ready to talk to the US, other countries, and the Pope to find solutions to the Ukrainian crisis. Regarding the French president's appeal to get Pope Francis to talk to Putin, Peskov lamented that no one is appealing to Kiev, which has openly rejected any negotiations.

After Macron paid an official visit to the US from November 29 to December 2, meeting with Biden to discuss the situation in Ukraine, as well as the economy, trade, energy, and space cooperation, he stated that Paris and Washington should make preparations to facilitate dialogue between Russia and Ukraine.

In response, the Kremlin said that Russia's President Vladimir Putin has always been and continues to remain open to negotiations on Ukraine, as evidenced by his attempts to initiate dialogue with the US, NATO and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) even before the start of hostilities.