A studious atmosphere but without effusions: Emmanuel Macron and Antony Blinken took a new step on Tuesday towards a relaunch of the partnership between the United States and France after an unprecedented diplomatic crisis, which however still leaves traces. The American Secretary of State was received in Paris by the French President to prepare the “concrete decisions” that the latter and Joe Biden will announce at the end of October in order to seal the reconciliation definitively.
The “long tête-à-tête”, which was not initially on the agenda, should “help restore confidence” after the submarine crisis, said the French presidency. Above all, a French diplomatic source assured that the Americans took seriously the anger of their long-time ally, and did not just try to do “cuddle therapy”.
Still “a lot of hard work”
According to a senior American official, who praised a “positive” and “productive” interview, there is a “common agreement that we now have an opportunity to deepen and strengthen coordination”, particularly in the area of defense. “But a lot of difficult work remains to be done to identify concrete decisions” which will be submitted to the two presidents for their own meeting scheduled for the end of October in Europe.
The cold snap broke on September 15, when the President of the United States announced a new alliance with Australia and the United Kingdom in the Indo-Pacific region, dubbed AUKUS. According to the senior American official, the atmosphere on Tuesday was “serious”, and the conversations no longer focused on the French recriminations about this alliance.
A less warm welcome
The Parisian reunion was nevertheless marked by a less warm welcome than in the past. The head of French diplomacy, Jean-Yves Le Drian, admittedly received his counterpart one-on-one at the Quai d’Orsay for a long time before the formal meeting, but he only showed himself at a minimum with him, without joint press conference. And to show that France is not isolated, the minister has increased exchanges with his European counterparts on Monday and Tuesday.
In Paris as in Washington but also in Brussels, people are now pretending to want to come out of this crisis from above, by clarifying the transatlantic relationship. France thus sees “a possible path to deepen cooperation” and hopes to obtain from the United States more “support” for the project dear to Emmanuel Macron of European defense complementary to NATO, according to a French diplomatic source. The latter also wants France’s status as an “Indo-Pacific power” to be recognized, within a framework that remains to be defined.
Finally, the French authorities want “a strengthening of American support for counterterrorism operations conducted by European states in the Sahel”, according to the same source. Proposals in this direction have also been made to the Americans.