France and Greece hedge their bets with a new defence pact
The new alliance reflects their shared fears of Turkey
KYRIAKOS MITSOTAKIS, Greece’s prime minister, cast it as a love story. “History…wants us together,” he told Emmanuel Macron, France’s president, in Paris on September 28th. “So does geography.” He serenaded Mr Macron with tales of Ionian seafarers landing in Marseilles and the French Philhellenes who backed Greece’s war of independence. Mr Macron said that Greece was “a civilisation that has inspired us and enabled us to be ourselves”. Then the two leaders consummated their courtship with what they are calling a “strategic” defence pact.
This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline “Paris Philhellenic”
From the October 2nd 2021 edition
Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents
Explore the editionMore from Europe
Herbert Kickl, Austria’s hard-right ideologue who played the long game
The Freedom Party leader is on the verge of becoming chancellor
A dispute over old war crimes strains Polish-Ukrainian relations
The beneficiary is Russia
Austria could soon have a first far-right leader since 1945
Herbert Kickl of the Freedom Party could be the next head of government
Europe has lots of lithium, but struggles to get it out of the ground
Its targets for strategic autonomy look hard to meet
Spain’s government marks 50 years since Franco died
Opponents say it is the birth of democracy that should be commemorated