Little Big Boots

The French, who have long been big on talk, and often small on action when it comes to NATO support and troop deployments etc ....

Being At The Big Table Is Important In Election Year ......

 ..... In fact President Macron has publicly dismissed Nato as being "brain dead" after Donald Trump was elected US President.

He's also been the loudest EU advocate of what he calls Europe's "strategic autonomy" i.e. an EU armed force (Under French leadership, 'naturellement'), and independent foreign policy. But the French are having a presidential election this year. How can you tell?

Well suddenly President Macron has stopped sniping at the 'Perfidious Albion' i.e Great Britain. Up until now his foreign policy utterances have been largely aimed at the UK. So he's supported French trawlers claiming UK fishing rights (The French long ago over fished their own coastal waters). 

He also claims that the UK is too accommodating to illegal migrants working here undocumented (actually true), so France can't stop undocumented illegal migrants crossing France, and then buying places on boats and crossing to the channel to the UK. 

The French Police Wave Bon Voyage To Illegals

Finally he personally stopped the general usage of the AstraZeneca vaccine (AZV) across much of the globe (at a cost of "hundreds of thousands of peoples" lives worldwide), despite its undoubted success in the UK, by making false claims on its efficacy for older people by stating that it appeared to be "quasi-ineffective" on people older than 65, despite the EU medicine regulator approving it for all adults the same day.

He, and the Germans, who had also supported the unfounded claims, later made u turns, but reputational damage against AZV was done. They then later stopped its usage again over a tiny risk of blood clots (a risk that was also later shown to be not much greater than in most other mass vaccination programmes and other Covid vaccines. In fact just 42 clotting reports were made in people who also had low levels of platelets) - among the millions who had already received a first AstraZeneca dose. 

Well over two billion doses have been delivered to low and middle income countries but much has been wasted as the damage done by Macron has stopped take up, but even so it seems highly likely to have saved more lives to date than the Pfizer and Moderna jabs combined in the UK. But such was the damage caused by Macron and other Europeans (and Merkel's government has blood on its hands as well), that the AZ vaccine is not being used widely, despite being cheap, effective and easy to store.

But now, having worn out the domestic vote value of his attacks on the UK, he's turned his attention to the worlds great problems such as the Ukraine war risk, where he turned up in Moscow for a chat with President Putin. There Macron and Putin shared a tête-à-tête over a five-hour dinner, which included reindeer with sweet potatoes and blackberries .... hmmm scrumptious. However his refusal to take a Russian Covid test on the grounds that the test would allow the Russian Intelligence Services (aka KGB when Putin was in it) to get hold of Macron's DNA, may have soured the mood somewhat.

But after the vodka toasts, Macron announced that the coming days would be "decisive" and "require intensive discussions which we will pursue together" ... pretentious to say the least. 

Even sleepy Joe Biden would not let the French speak for NATO or the US (although given Merkels departure he may well think France is now leading the EU). A fact confirmed by Mr Putin, who repeated earlier warnings that should Ukraine join the Western military alliance Nato and attempt to take back Crimea (Russia annexed this eight years ago), Europe could get sucked into a major conflict. "Do you want France to fight with Russia?" he asked French reporters. "That's what will happen. And there will be no winners." But Putin did say that some of Mr Macron's proposals "could form the basis of further joint steps", but adding that they were "probably still too early to talk about".

But French Presidential DNA defended, extravagant claims made, TV clips beamed, newspaper photo's taken, radio sound bites recorded, and la gloire de la France reasserted, President Macron flew off to Berlin, to report to the new German Chancellor, and Polish President Andrzej Duda ... While Russia immediately showed Macron what it really thought of his diplomacy, by opening up another front to the North of Ukraine by holding joint military exercises with the Belarus military. 

Forcing France to call the drills (believed to be Russia's biggest deployment to Belarus since the Cold War), a "violent gesture". Ukraine says they amount to "psychological pressure". 

...... Yep, its French Presidential election season right enough.