ANALYSIS - Macron's Support For Ukraine's Accession To NATO Amounts To 'Balancing Trick'

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 29th June, 2023) French President Emmanuel Macron's support for Ukrainian accession to NATO is a balancing act to show solidarity with Western allies without alienating Russia in the future, as he knows that integrating Kiev into the alliance is currently impossible, European experts told Sputnik.

On Wednesday, Macron said that it would be necessary, at the upcoming NATO summit in Vilnius, to determine specific steps for Ukraine's accession to NATO. French newspaper Le Monde previously reported that France had decided to support Ukraine's entry into NATO before the summit in Vilnius. This constitutes a major reversal in French foreign policy, as Paris did not support Kiev's bid to join the alliance in the past.

"He (Macron) knows better than anyone that integrating Ukraine into NATO is impossible under the present conditions (a country at war cannot be integrated into the Atlantic Alliance), and in any case this will be very difficult in the future," French political philosopher Alain de Benoist said.

According to the expert, the French president wants to be seen as supporting the existent Western position on the issue while preserving the future prospects of a relationship with Moscow.

"This is a balancing trick that is of no interest to anyone and that, first of all, does not take into account the general transformations of the world that are taking place," de Benoist observed.

In the past, Macron expressed his skepticism of NATO, going as far as to call it "brain-dead" and arguing in favor of European strategic autonomy. In that, he was part of a tradition that harks back to Charles de Gaulle, the founding father of the Fifth Republic. However, Italian author and researcher Thomas Fazi thinks that the French president's recent about-face shows that he has no real long-term vision or strategy.

"He enjoys playing the role of the neo-Gaullist (see his statements after his recent trip to China) but ultimately it's just that - role-playing. He never seriously challenged the US, not even when he was calling it 'brain-dead' and Europe-US relations were more strained than ever (under (former US President Donald) Trump); it's highly unlikely he will do it now that Europe's subordination to Washington is stronger than ever," Fazi explained.

When asked if Macron was trying to appeal to staunchly pro-NATO countries in Eastern Europe in order to gain an advantage over Germany, the expert suggested that the French leader was simply reacting to a general shift in sentiment rather than following some grand strategy.

"If that's the strategy, it's unlikely to work. As much as Eastern (European) countries - or some of them at least: first and foremost Poland - have historical grievances against Germany, they still trust Germany more than they trust France when it comes to Russia/NATO commitments," Fazi said, adding that "Germany has been much more active than France in trying to redefine its role in light of the massive tectonic shifts brought about the war in Ukraine � especially Europe's geopolitical pivot from the West to the East and the reassertion of US control over the continent."

Specifically, Berlin seems to be trying to define a reinvigorated "special relationship" with the United States as Washington's main Western European proxy, especially on the issues of foreign policy and NATO.

"As (German sociologist) Wolfgang Streeck has argued, this would entail re-establishing a position of economic leadership within the EU, on the provision of managing it on Washington's behalf and of 'tak(ing) responsibility for organizing and, importantly, financing the European contribution to the war,'" Fazi concluded.