International | French diplomacy

Emmanuel Macron’s vision of a more muscular Europe is coming true

But his allies disagree on its strategies and goals

TOPSHOT - French presidential election candidate for the En Marche! movement Emmanuel Macron delivers a speech during a campaign rally in Reims on March 17, 2017. (Photo by François NASCIMBENI / AFP) (Photo by FRANCOIS NASCIMBENI/AFP via Getty Images)
Image: Getty Images
|PARIS

It was a cautious but hopeful French president who took his seat in the beige-trimmed aircraft office, bound from Moscow to Kyiv on February 8th 2022. The previous night Emmanuel Macron had spent over five strikingly socially distanced hours seated opposite Vladimir Putin at a table the length of a shipping container.

This article appeared in the International section of the print edition under the headline “Perpetual motion”

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