Why is Macron suddenly pro-Ukraine? Fear of Le Pen

Its an old ruse to deploy foreign policy for domestic purposes. France has a long history in that vein. General de Gaulle was adept at using popular domestic anti-Americanism on the world stage to embarrass pro-Nato political forces at home; François Mitterrand exploited the early 1980s Euromissile crisis with the Soviet Union to humiliate and isolate the French Communist party. Emmanuel Macron’s startling declaration that the West should not rule out putting troops on the ground in Ukraine is less a Damascene conversion than a strategy to stymy the Rassemblement National’s runaway 10 point poll lead for June’s EU elections.

A charitable soul might characterise President Macron’s support for Ukraine over the last two years as patchy. Whereas the US and Britain were supporting Ukraine before the Russian invasion, Macron refused even to accept Anglo-American intelligence that an invasion would take place, then blaming France’s director of military intelligence, whom he duly sacked.