Macron emerges as champion of the liberal world order
With a pair of major foreign policy challenges looming in the coming days – the future of the Iran nuclear deal and the prospect of a trade war between America and its European allies – it’s easy to lose sight of the longer-term goal behind French President Emmanuel Macron’s dramatic state visit to Washington.
France’s World War II resistance leader, President Charles de Gaulle, was famously, if perhaps apocryphally, quoted as saying: “! (I am France!)" Macron’s message is actually.” In fact, he is seeking to position himself not just as the embodiment of a reinvigorated European Union, but as a key defender of the whole edifice of postwar international cooperation and liberal democracy built by the Americans, with Europe’s support, seven decades ago.
