Emmanuel Macron’s visit to Moscow last week was reminiscent of a trip made by Charles de Gaulle to the Russian capital in November 1944. Neither man left much of an impression on their host.
Macron, after six hours of talks with Vladimir Putin, failed to persuade the Russian president to de-escalate the situation on the Ukrainian border whatever he might have claimed to the contrary.
De Gaulle, the leader of the recently-liberated France in 1944, made little headway with Stalin, who subsequently told the American ambassador Averell Harriman that he found the Frenchman ‘an awkward and stubborn man’. That description must have struck a chord with Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt. At the final banquet for the French delegation Stalin toasted the British Prime Minister and American President but neglected to raise his glass in de Gaulle’s honour. Stalin rated his allies on their military significance and he considered France inconsequential.
The snub stung de Gaulle.
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