When President François Mitterrand addressed the nation on television on January 16th 1991, his message was clear: the Gulf War, in which France was preparing to take part, “will demand a great deal [from] the [French] people”. And the socialist head of state urged: “You must be sure of one thing. Protecting the rule of law in the Gulf, in the Middle East, however far away they may seem on a map, is protecting our country.”
Thirty-four years later, Emmanuel Macron has echoed the warnings of his distant predecessor to highlight the geopolitical shift taking place. “The Russian threat is here”, “affects us” and “knows no borders”, the head of state warned. “The world is becoming ever more brutal, and the terrorist threat has not weakened,” he continued. “In short, and this really has to be said, our prosperity and security have become more uncertain.”
Enlargement : Illustration 1
The French president's televised address on March 5th was largely devoted to the war in Ukraine, coming two days after the United States announced the suspension of military aid to Kyiv. While it contained no major new policy announcements, Macron used the opportunity to set out in deliberately sombre terms the state of global affairs. “Russia has become a threat to France and to Europe,” he said, before posing the question: “Who can believe that [it] will stop at Ukraine?”
While reaffirming Paris’s support for Kyiv, which he urged to “continue to resist”, the president appeared to be preparing the public for the direct consequences of the changed diplomatic landscape, particularly the growing rapprochement between the United States and Russia. “Faced with this dangerous world, remaining a spectator would be madness,” he declared, before appealing to the nation’s “strength of spirit”. He added: “The country needs you, your commitment.”
More focus on the EU's defence than on Ukraine’s
The question of how to help Ukraine, which has been abandoned by Donald Trump’s United States, was addressed only briefly. Macron expressed his desire for “peace” – now a prerequisite for any leader speaking on the war, to avoid being seen as the one compromising negotiations – before setting out the various options under discussion among Kyiv’s European allies.
The main proposal is the deployment of European troops to guarantee a potential ceasefire. This is an initiative that has been discussed for several months but France and the United Kingdom have struggled to persuade other nations to join them in it. On Wednesday night Macron limited himself to mentioning the possible “deployment, perhaps, of European forces”, taking care to clarify that they “would not be sent to fight today on the front line” but rather would be in place “once peace is signed, to ensure full compliance”.
This was a way of stepping back from his earlier statements, in which he said he had “not ruled out” sending French troops to Ukraine, but in the context of ongoing combat rather than a post-ceasefire scenario. Those remarks had sparked strong opposition and deep concern among the French public at the time.
Though in the end his remarks on support for Ukraine were brief, in contrast the head of state's address was rather more substantial when it came to another issue: how to rearm Europe, which he said had to be “capable of defending itself better”. The future of the continent “must not be be decided in Washington and Moscow”, he argued, though he stopped short of breaking with the United States, which he still described as an “ally” and whose recent betrayals and attacks he only lightly alluded to.
On the question of European defence, Emmanuel Macron said he was convinced that “decisive steps” will be taken at the extraordinary summit of European Union (EU) leaders set for today, March 6th. These concern the financing of military spending; defence policy itself remains the prerogative of each member state.
Two key measures, already discussed in recent days, are at the heart of this shift: European capitals will be able to “increase their military spending without it being counted in their deficit” - a significant change for Germany in particular - and there will be “massive joint financing” to “purchase and produce military equipment on European soil”. The French president also again raised, without providing further details, the possibility of “starting a discussion” on how France’s nuclear deterrent could protect other European countries.
Preparing minds… and austerity?
In fact, the central message of the president’s comments came at the end of his address. In the absence of strong, new or detailed announcements regarding security guarantees for Ukraine, the commitment Emmanuel Macron sought to prepare the public for on Wednesday was an economic one, an investment in the armed forces that might have to come at the expense of other services and policies.
“Given the development of the threats, we will have to make new budgetary choices,” he said, urging the government under prime minister François Bayrou to “work on this as quickly as possible”. This was arguably the main highlight of the presidential address, one designed to prepare public opinion for the difficult trade-offs ahead.
“There will have to be reform, choices, courage,” the head of state declared, arguing that the “moment demands decisions that are without precedent for decades”. “For our agriculture, our research, our industry, for all our public policies, we cannot have the same debates we once had,” he added, suggesting a willingness to fund military efforts by cutting other budgets.
The executive believes the time has come for a paradigm shift when it comes to the nation's budget. In recent days several of the president's supporters have already begun calls to fund military expenditure through savings in France's social welfare model or through “structural” reforms to working hours or the retirement age.
This is neither an obvious nor a risk-free choice; military spending could be financed through debt rather than cuts to other services. How can a nation be called upon to show its “strength of spirit” and its citizens urged to “commit” to it when much of what once embodied that nation – above all, public services that work and an economic policy geared towards reducing inequalities – has been dismantled?
In any case, it will be up to the government to decide on the specifics of these budgetary sacrifices, Emmanuel Macron reminded the French people, without specifying whether he favoured amending the current finance law or whether the coming decisions would be reflected in the 2026 budget which will be debated in the autumn. But the French president left no doubt about the path he expects the ruling coalition under prime minister Bayrou to take: a radical one, since, in his view “tomorrow's solutions” cannot be “ yesterday's ways”.
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- The original French version of this article can be found here.
English version by Michael Streeter