France, explained.
As with baguettes and bouillabaisse, the French cherish their strategies and protected domains in foreign policy (Rachel Boßmeyer/picture alliance via Getty Images)
The ills that plague the Republic seem to lie in its waning agency and authority in a disrupted and contested world.
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Postcard from France: A political system in decline?Postcard from France: A political system in decline?
In France, why is the price of bouillabaisse so high but baguettes so cheap? Part of the answer is simply technical, to do with volume, past regulation, and competition in the case of bread, the diversity and scarcity of stocks with Marseille’s fish soup. A larger part of the answer, though, concerns tradition and quality, and the ways in which the French insist on cherishing and protecting facets of their society.
As with bouillabaisse and baguettes, so too with cherished French strategies and protected domains in foreign policy – but not its domestic polity. Outsiders worried about France might argue that the country now has no coherent, practical frame of reference for discussing the problems which matter most. Coping with illegal immigration, reducing the budget deficit, modernising the economy, ensuring social harmony, placating farmers – all those issues are not just urgent and critical. They seem too big, too hard, too divisive and too expensive for the political system to resolve. France’s current Prime Minister, François Bayrou, vows to tell the electorate the truth, but how much unwelcome, unpalatable truth and for how long?
Nonetheless, France’s self-inflicted wounds do not extend to the foreign policy of the Republic. Domestically, the French may doubt themselves, pre-occupied as they have been this summer by successive heatwaves, loan of the Bayeux tapestry, jellyfish shutting down a nuclear plant, air conditioning as a political argument, the irksome intrusions of tourists, and – far more importantly – the besetting worry about whether any government can be stable enough to work effectively (at least until the next presidential election).
French President Emmanuel Macron has more executive experience than his Italian, British or German counterparts, but this has not dispelled doubts about his resolution or focus (Number 10/Flickr)
At that election in 2027, given fissures among the conservatives, the collapse of the socialists, and lots of vaulting ambitions, the second round might be contested between the far right (Jordan Bardella or Marine Le Pen, if permitted to run) and an old-fashioned, hard-line left-winger (Jean-Luc Mélenchon). In any normal circumstances, neither could conceivably attract 50 per cent plus one of the votes.
In the sharpest contrast, in French foreign policy the key premises are neither queried nor contested. France must at all times be treated with the dignity and respect accorded to a great power. Adversaries of France should pay a price for their obduracy. Policy objectives should be dressed up, sometimes with a motto from the Revolution (liberté, égalité, fraternité), often by depicting France as the intellectual and military motor of Europe. Soft power counts for something, but hard power really matters. If France is ever scorned or spurned, then the president should be held personally responsible.
Although amnesia, indolence and lack of attention span may limit public understanding of global issues, none of those vices is tolerated at the Quai d’Orsay.
At the working level, these assumptions are backed up by a rigorous insistence on rational presentation of a case. Characteristically, three talking points are offered, with resort to the subjunctive voice in the first and a couple of sub-points in the second. Resistance may not be futile, but is made to seem illogical, irrational, essentially inadmissible. Although amnesia, indolence and lack of attention span may limit public understanding of global issues, none of those vices is tolerated at the Quai d’Orsay.
More often than not, France’s premises no longer hold, and those systems no longer work. The French political class is fond of the Munich analogy, as applied to both Ukraine and tariff deals with Washington. At Munich in 1938, however, France possessed agency and authority.
Now French leaders need to jostle to gain entry to the room where it happens. Sometimes the French float trial balloons (four-way talks on Ukraine), rely on gestures (recognition of a Palestinian State), trail along with other Europeans (to the Oval Office), resort to hackneyed slogans (“more Europe” most of all), focus on commercial prospects (as with China), or strike deals which seem impractical (return of boat arrivals from Britain). Increasing defence spending should be a panacea rather than a placebo. Dealing with leaders less in thrall than Cartesian logicians to rationality (like Putin or Trump) remains problematic.
Perhaps the French should explore a different version of their favourite model, not the arch, dogged insistence on French rights during de Gaulle’s presidency (1959–69) but de Gaulle mustering a few French assets and redeeming France’s shattered reputation in exile in London (1940–44). There the General was in Carlton Gardens, playing an extremely weak hand with finesse, deftness and a certain ruthlessness. He connived, exhorted, conspired, imagined and invented, essentially making something out of not much at all. Now his successors have to do likewise.
That job falls to the President of the Republic alone, constitutionally (thanks to de Gaulle) and because there is room for only one Trump whisperer. Emmanuel Macron has more executive experience than Italy’s Meloni (five years), the UK’s Starmer (seven) and Germany’s Merz (eight). Nonetheless, he has not dispelled doubts about his resolution or vanity – the distinction between centrisme and egocentrisme as one party leader put it. Macron’s party is going through a fourth name change, his focus and aims through rather more permutations. Are French tradition and quality, the baguette and the bouillabaisse, safe in his hands?
About the author
Mark Pierce
Mark Pierce was a diplomat and is now a writer who has spent years living in France and Germany.
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