Emmanuel Macron was heckled and jeered on a state visit to the Netherlands as he faced pressure over both raising the French pension age and his warning that Europe must not become “vassals” in a US conflict with China over Taiwan, reports The Guardian.
The French president was due to give a speech on European strategic autonomy when two demonstrators against his pension changes were arrested as they ran towards him on his arrival at the University of Amsterdam.
The speech, interrupted by repeated heckling, had been seen as a chance to clarify his remarks in an interview on Sunday in which he called for Europe to act more independently from the US over Taiwan. French officials that insisted he would not apologise for his remarks, and pointed out that a French naval ship had been sailing through the Taiwan strait on Sunday, a sign of France’s commitment to Taiwan’s independence.
Opinion is sharply divided within European political circles about Macron’s remarks, acclaimed by Chinese media, that Europe must not get involved in US fights, and should aspire to become a third pole alongside Washington and Beijing.
He gave the interview just as China was undertaking military exercises off the coast of Taiwan in response to a meeting between Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ing-wen, and the US House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, in Los Angeles.
Degrees of unease with Macron’s freelancing were also emerging in Berlin, from where Annalena Baerbock, the German foreign minister, flew to Beijing on Wednesday for a long-planned visit that some officials framed as an exercise in damage limitation after Macron’s remarks.
Macron had in his interview cautioned against being drawn into a crisis over Taiwan driven by an “American rhythm and a Chinese overreaction”. He said in a later press conference in the Netherlands that France’s position on Taiwan had not changed and that he favoured the current “status quo” in respect of the island.
The foreign policy spokesperson of Baerbock’s Social Democrat coalition partners, Nils Schmid, told Der Spiegel she faced “the unplanned challenge of clarifying Europe’s stance on Taiwan and firming up the warnings that the chancellor [Olaf Scholz] sounded during his meeting with Xi [Jinping] in November”.
Ahead of Baerbock’s departure, Andrea Sasse, a spokesperson for the German foreign ministry accused China of inflaming tensions with its military exercises around Taiwan. “We have the impression that measures such as threatening military gestures … increase the risk of unintended military clashes,” she said.
Germany is “working with our international partners to contribute to de-escalation” in the region, Sasse added.
Last August, Baerbock drew angry responses from Beijing when she likened Beijing’s threatening posture towards Taiwan to Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine.