President Emmanuel Macron may or may not have imagined that his mission to Moscow would head off armed conflict in Ukraine. He will nevertheless have calculated that while his mission was an abject diplomatic failure, it was a modest political success.
The French pro-Macron media (most of it) bigged up the visit as a triumph of French diplomacy and an affirmation of Macron’s global stature. Plus, all the jetting back and forth gave the President an excuse to further delay announcing his candidacy for the presidential election, the first round of which is in just 47 days.
He might have failed to stop Putin’s aggression, but at least he was seen trying. That the deal he claimed with Putin was imaginary wasn’t really important. What mattered was that he was on the international stage, strutting his stuff.
Then again, in terms of its broader semiotics, this particular footnote to Macron’s first term was weirdly revealing.
That the deal he claimed with Putin was imaginary wasn’t really important
Putin, who frankly does not look well, sat at one end of a gigantic table, with Macron at the other.
It was a performative act of social distancing consistent with Putin having developed a Howard Hughes-style germaphobia, perhaps associated with his recently pale and sickly appearance.
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