Why is Macron so desperate to bring Russia in from the cold?

Emmanuel Macron should get a new historical advisor. He continues to repeat – this time at his Kyiv press conference on Thursday – that Russia must not be humiliated following its invasion and war against Ukraine. Politicians indiscriminately pluck at historical examples to justify controversial policies. For Macron, the aftermath of the First World War serves as a warning against the dangers of humiliating adversaries. According to the French president, humiliation of Germany in the 1919 Versailles Peace treaty resulted in the allies losing the peace and Germany plotting revenge and renewed war twenty years later. He actually turned at this point to German chancellor Olaf Scholz, who had accompanied him (with Mario Draghi of Italy), to emphasise the point.

Yet for modern historians of international relations, the view that the Allies humiliated Germany after the Great War has been hotly contested for years.