Emmanuel Macron yesterday warned his EU partners that “Europe may die” if quick decisions are not taken to guarantee its sovereignty in multiple areas, from defense to high-tech industry, and to preserve its threatened model of liberal democracy and social protection. The French president gave a long speech, lasting almost two hours, at the Sorbonne University, on the same stage where he spoke seven years ago, in 2017, a few months after conquering the Elysée.
“Our Europe is mortal,” Macron said. Europe can die. It depends on us.” It was the central phrase of his speech, followed by around five hundred national and foreign guests. He repeated this reflection several times, with the rhetorical skill and almost theatrical skills that characterize the French head of state on these kinds of solemn occasions.
According to Macron, events of recent years such as the pandemic and the war in Ukraine have changed the rules of the game and it is urgent to adapt to survive. In his opinion, the European Union reacted well to those crises, with measures such as joint borrowing, until then a taboo, to boost post-covid economic recovery, or the common purchase of vaccines, but much more needs to be done.
The speech was heavily criticized by the opposition and by the press because they considered that it was a primarily electoral maneuver by the president, who would have been fully launched in the campaign for the European elections on June 9 to try to reverse a very unfavorable trend. According to the polls, the Macronist list, headed by MEP Valérie Hayer, is between 12 and 15 percentage points behind Reagrupament Nacional (RN, extreme right). Sources from the Elysee denied that political intention, although the explanations have not been very convincing.
The event at the Sorbonne was also controversial because the French MEPs were invited, without taking into account that it coincided with the last plenary session of the Eurochamber in Strasbourg before the elections, with important votes. Some lamented the lack of institutional respect and arrogance.
Macron touched on a wide variety of topics, from agriculture to semiconductors, demography and green industry. The common denominator was to warn that Europe runs a very serious risk of being “fragile” and “relegated” in the world context if it does not defend itself unitedly and invest massively. For the French president, the crises of recent years have shown that the EU cannot depend on Russia for its energy, on China for certain strategic industrial supplies, or on the United States to ensure its military defense.
Economic and defense sovereignty also depends, for the tenant of the Elysée, on the maintenance of a highly valued social protection model and a system of unfettered freedoms. The president warned of the constant threats and attacks that liberal democracies suffer.
Europe must equip itself, in the words of the French president, with the tools to be a “power”, while it must maintain “prosperity” and preserve its “humanism”. These three ideas were emphasized in his exhibition. In the power section, he insisted on the urgency of improving autonomous defense, even with a common loan to invest massively in armaments, and to develop an immigration and asylum policy that makes borders truly respected. Macron made it quite clear that the French nuclear deterrent capability – the only independent one within the EU after the exit of the – “is an inescapable element” of European defense and also covers the continent’s partners and allies, a statement that does not it’s always so obvious. According to the president, Europe should consider, among other things, also having its own anti-missile shield.
Regarding Ukraine, Macron reiterated his usual line of recent years, shared with the allies, and emphasized that “the main danger for European security is the war in Ukraine; the sine qua non for our security is that Russia does not win this war of aggression”. Regarding Brexit, the president admitted that it has been one of the most serious crises in the history of the EU, although with a positive, instructive consequence, since “no one today dares to propose exits, nor of Europe nor of the euro”.
Despite Macron’s efforts, it is not at all clear that his second speech at the Sorbonne will have a significant impact on the electorate. His strategy of media saturation can be counterproductive in the face of voters who are already very hostile to him, and his long and dense speeches are soon diluted in the information maelstrom.
