The new leader of the West

Macron's embrace of Poland is rich with meaning

I’ve taken to calling French President Emmanuel Macron “the new leader of the West.” He certainly looked the part at the funeral of Pope Francis, where Ukraine was a major topic of negotiation on the margins. A single photo shows it all. Macron, Starmer, Trump, and Zelensky are gathered. Macron is directly across from the US president, staring him down. Starmer is to Macron’s left, seemingly playing the “good cop” role. Zelensky is to Macron’s right, and the French president’s right hand is firmly planted on Zelensky’s shoulder, clearly communicating “he’s with me and I’m with him.” And Trump is not looking happy. (The warm applause that greeted Zelensky’s arrival for the funeral probably didn’t do much for Trump’s mood either.)

Macron’s leadership also will be on display May 9, when he signs a wide-ranging treaty with Polish Prime Minister Tusk on Franco-Polish defense and economic cooperation. It’s presumably no accident that the signature will take place on the day Russia celebrates “its” victory in World War II. The message that France will stand with one of NATO’s front-line states at a time of Russian aggression could not be clearer. And it highlights how France is seeking to help fill the European security vacuum that the Trump Administration is creating.

There is a powerful message also in the choice of location for the treaty signing. Nancy is the principal city of the eastern French region of Lorraine, historically contested territory in the European geopolitical landscape. And it aptly symbolizes the historical connection between Poland and France. When it was still part of the Holy Roman Empire, the Duchy of Lorraine was ruled for almost thirty years by a former Polish king, Stanisław Leszczýnski. Lorraine then passed to French rule upon his death in February 1766. (In 1725, his daughter Marie had married the young King Louis XV of France.)

As Duke of Lorraine, Leszczýnski (referred to in French as Stanislas Leczinski), made Nancy a center of Enlightenment culture, and himself wrote, in Polish, an important Enlightenment treatise. He was responsible for building the spectacular Place Stanislas in Nancy, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. (Though not exactly a tourist mecca, Nancy is well worth a visit.)

Franco-Polish links did not end there. In 1807, Napoleon attempted to revive the Polish state that had been dismembered by Austria, Prussia, and Russia in the Partitions of Poland (1772-1795). The Grand Duchy of Warsaw, however, did not outlast its creator. After World War I, with both countries fearing German resurgence, France and Poland signed another alliance. (They’d had one in 1524…) When Hitler invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, France (and the UK) declared war on Germany, although they were concretely unable to come to the aid of their Polish allies. (The Poles also don’t forget having been invaded by the Soviet Union on September 17, 1939, based on the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact that provided for yet another partition of Poland.)

Putin would like those of us in North America and the more western parts of Europe to preserve a Cold War mindset and continue thinking of the former Soviet colonies in Europe as fundamentally “them,” not really part of the West. Even without the Cold War effect, Neville Chamberlain referred to Hitler’s demands to annex the largely German-speaking part of Czechoslovakia as a “quarrel in a faraway country, between people of whom we know nothing.” That was right before selling out Britain’s defense partner Czechoslovakia at the September 1938 Munich Conference.

French President Macron, fortunately understands that, for Europeans, Poland is quintessentially part of the “us” and not some alien “them.” And he’s showing it.