Why does Macron keep meddling in international crises?

Just two months from the presidential elections, Emmanuel Macron’s self-belief and risk-taking — not to mention setbacks — seem to know few bounds. And no more so than in foreign affairs. Following the French President’s telephone conversation with Vladimir Putin over Ukraine on 20 February, the Elysée triumphantly announced that a Biden-Putin summit was agreed in principle, only for the Kremlin to pour cold water on the idea the next morning. Washington then followed suit, before Putin announced the recognition of the two breakaway Ukrainian republics of Donetsk and Luhansk.

This humiliation comes after Macron’s Moscow visit on 7 February, which concluded with a live press conference in which Putin gently put down the French President’s youthful enthusiasm and suggestion that Russia had agreed to freeze escalation.

Macron had hitherto seen himself as the great international powerbroker. He struck up a strategic dialogue with Putin in 2019, essentially unilaterally, but on behalf of Europe, making many in Brussels uncomfortable.