“There is a strong likelihood that all those who have criticised Emmanuel Macron’s leadership throughout his two terms in office will come to miss him greatly should the worst-case scenario materialise next year,” says Julien Hoez, a geopolitical analyst and editor of The French Dispatch, referring to the possibility of the far-right candidate, Jordan Bardella, winning the election. Nevertheless, the expert is keen to point out that it is by no means certain that Bardella will be elected to succeed Macron.
With a year to go before the elections, he points out, “opinion polls can change very, very quickly, and with the far left haemorrhaging support and the traditional left-wing parties on the rise, there could be a strengthening of the centre and the left – not to mention that the far right may also begin to suffer some damage based on its response to current events”.
US ‘umbrella’ in doubt but still in place
In the hours following Macron’s announcement, the countries to which Paris had extended its invitation to join a new ‘forward deterrence’ scheme reacted with enthusiasm but some caution – and a more or less unanimous warning.
As soon as the speech ended, Hoez argued, in comments to CNN, that this shift in the nuclear paradigm serves as a warning not only to Russia or China, but also to a United States which, just a few weeks ago, was considering using force to annex Greenland – and whose president continues, four years on from Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine, to mediate negotiations between the parties that many view as being more beneficial to Moscow. Nevertheless, most countries were keen to emphasise that this new European “forward deterrence” does not call into question the US nuclear umbrella or the Atlantic alliance.