Macron Is Rebuilding France’s Influence Inside Europe

For much of Emmanuel Macron’s presidency, France’s European ambitions appeared to be larger than the political reality around them.

The French president spoke about European sovereignty, strategic autonomy and the need for the EU to become a geopolitical power at a time when many member states still preferred the familiar division of labour. The United States would provide security. China would remain a major industrial partner. European markets would stay open. Brussels would regulate, while national governments would largely manage their own economic interests.

That model is no longer holding.

The United States is demanding that Europe take greater responsibility for its own security. China is increasingly challenging the industrial base of the continent. Russia’s war against Ukraine has transformed the European security environment. Trade is becoming more confrontational, technology is becoming geopolitical and economic dependence is increasingly viewed as a strategic vulnerability.

The crises that once made Macron’s vision difficult to implement are now making parts of it increasingly difficult to ignore.

France is attempting to use this moment to rebuild its influence over the direction of the European Union. Macron’s strategy is taking shape through several connected relationships — with Ursula von der Leyen in Brussels, Friedrich Merz in Berlin and a broader group of European powers seeking to strengthen the continent’s industrial and strategic capacity.

The objective is not simply to make France more influential.

It is to ensure that the next phase of European integration is built around ideas that Paris has been promoting for years.

The moment is finally moving towards Macron

Macron has long argued that Europe cannot remain strategically dependent on external powers while expecting to retain political influence.

His concept of European sovereignty was always broader than defence. It included the ability to produce critical technologies, protect strategic industries, secure energy supplies, control key infrastructure and act independently in a more competitive international system.

For years, this approach faced considerable resistance.

Germany was reluctant to abandon the economic assumptions behind its export model. Many northern European states viewed industrial intervention with suspicion. Eastern European governments remained more concerned about preserving the American security guarantee than developing a separate European strategic identity. The European Commission had to balance geopolitical ambitions with the traditional logic of the single market.

The environment has now changed.

The global economy is becoming more fragmented. The United States is increasingly prepared to use economic power as a tool of geopolitical pressure. China is expanding its industrial dominance across sectors that Europe once considered strategically important. At the same time, the war in Ukraine has demonstrated that European security cannot be separated from industrial capacity.

This is the environment in which Macron’s political language has become more relevant.

The French president no longer has to convince Europe that the world is changing. The central debate is now over what Europe should do about it.

That gives France a political opportunity.

Paris and Brussels are converging

The relationship between Macron and Ursula von der Leyen is central to France’s attempt to convert its political agenda into European policy.

The French president cannot impose his priorities on the EU directly. The European Commission, however, has the ability to transform political pressure into legislation, funding programmes and regulatory decisions.

This creates a powerful division of labour.

Paris pushes the argument that Europe must become more sovereign. Brussels develops the mechanisms through which that sovereignty can be implemented.

The convergence is particularly visible in the debate over competitiveness, industrial policy and economic security. The Commission is increasingly focused on strengthening Europe’s industrial base, reducing critical dependencies and creating conditions in which European companies can compete with heavily supported foreign rivals.

France has been advocating precisely this direction for years.

The significance of the relationship is therefore not that Macron and von der Leyen agree on every issue. They do not. The significance is that the political environment is making French priorities increasingly compatible with the Commission’s own strategic agenda.

Economic security is replacing the assumption that efficiency should always come first. Resilience is becoming more important than the cheapest possible supply chain. Strategic sectors are increasingly being treated differently from ordinary commercial activity.

This is the moment in which a French political argument can become European policy.

Germany is becoming the decisive test

If Macron’s agenda is to become genuinely European, however, it cannot remain a French project.

The most important question is whether Germany is prepared to move closer to Paris.

The Franco-German relationship has traditionally been divided by different economic philosophies. France has generally favoured a stronger role for the state, greater political coordination and more active industrial policy. Germany has traditionally placed greater emphasis on fiscal discipline, open markets and the competitiveness of its export industries.

The economic environment has made that division less sustainable.

Germany’s industrial model is under pressure from high energy costs, structural changes in global demand and increasingly aggressive competition from China. The country that benefited most from the old globalisation model is now among those most exposed to its transformation.

As a result, Berlin is becoming more receptive to ideas that Paris has been promoting for years.

At the Franco-German ministerial council on 17 July, the two countries reaffirmed their commitment to a more sovereign, competitive and resilient European Union. They agreed to coordinate positions on competitiveness, the single market, industrial policy and the simplification of EU rules. They also called for a stronger European response to global economic imbalances and greater use of existing trade-defence instruments.

The shift is especially important in relation to China.

France and Germany have increasingly converged around the argument that Europe must address the growing pressure on its industrial base. Macron has described the current Chinese trade approach in increasingly confrontational terms, while Merz has warned that growing imbalances cannot continue without consequences for European industry.

This does not amount to a Franco-German strategy of economic decoupling.

Both countries remain deeply dependent on global trade and recognise the importance of maintaining economic relations with China. The emerging position is more complicated: Europe should remain open, but it should no longer be passive.

That distinction is increasingly becoming the centre of European economic policy.

China is turning French ideas into European priorities

For Macron, the China debate is about more than trade.

It is about power.

European companies are increasingly competing with Chinese firms in sectors that are central to the continent’s future — electric vehicles, batteries, solar technology, industrial equipment and other advanced manufacturing industries.

The issue is not simply that Chinese products are cheaper. The deeper concern is that the scale of Chinese industrial capacity, combined with state support and a vast domestic market, could allow Chinese companies to dominate strategic sectors before European competitors have the time to adapt.

France has long argued that the EU should respond through a stronger industrial strategy.

Germany was more cautious when its own companies benefited from access to the Chinese market. That position has become increasingly difficult to maintain as Chinese firms have moved from being customers to direct competitors.

The result is a political convergence.

The debate is gradually shifting from whether Europe should intervene to how far it should go.

This is precisely the shift Macron has been trying to achieve.

The French president does not need the EU to adopt a fully protectionist economic model. He needs European governments to accept that trade policy, industrial policy and geopolitical strategy are now inseparable.

Once that principle is accepted, France gains influence.

The question of whether Europe should protect its industrial base is no longer a theoretical French debate. It is becoming a practical question of whether Europe will continue to have an industrial base to protect.

Strategic autonomy is moving from theory to security policy

The same transformation is taking place in defence.

Macron’s argument that Europe must become more capable of acting independently was once often interpreted as a challenge to the United States. Today, it is increasingly being framed as a response to uncertainty.

The transatlantic alliance remains central to European security. But the political assumption that the United States will always provide the capabilities Europe lacks has become less secure.

That is creating space for France.

France is the EU’s only nuclear-armed state and possesses the continent’s most developed tradition of strategic autonomy. Macron has therefore attempted to place French capabilities at the centre of the debate about Europe’s future security architecture.

The latest Franco-German agreements demonstrate how far this discussion has moved.

Paris and Berlin have agreed to deepen strategic cooperation, including through the Franco-German Nuclear Steering Group. The two countries are also working on missile defence, long-range strike capabilities, space cooperation and the future of European air combat systems. Germany is expected to participate in a French nuclear exercise, a politically significant step even though France retains full control over its nuclear arsenal.

The significance is not that Germany is adopting the French nuclear doctrine.

It is that Berlin is becoming more willing to engage with French strategic thinking.

For Macron, this creates a new opportunity. France can present itself not simply as a country demanding greater European autonomy, but as a country capable of providing part of the strategic capacity that autonomy would require.

This gives the French president an influence that other European leaders do not possess.

France needs more than Berlin

The traditional Franco-German relationship, however, is no longer sufficient to determine the future of Europe.

The EU is too large, too diverse and too politically fragmented for Paris and Berlin to impose a common direction on their own.

Macron therefore needs a broader coalition.

Italy is one of the most important potential partners. France and Italy have already sought closer cooperation on industrial policy, technology, space and European competitiveness. A stronger relationship between Paris, Berlin and Rome could create a powerful centre of gravity around a more active European economic strategy.

Other partnerships are equally important in security.

Poland and other eastern European states will be essential to any European defence project, even if their strategic assumptions remain more closely tied to the United States. The United Kingdom, despite Brexit, remains one of Europe’s most important military powers.

Macron’s challenge is therefore to build a flexible network of partnerships rather than recreate an old-style European directorate.

France cannot lead Europe simply by asking other states to follow the French model.

It must persuade different governments that French priorities can serve their own interests.

For Germany, the argument is industrial survival. For eastern Europe, it is military capability. For Italy, it is economic competitiveness. For Brussels, it is the need to make the European project more resilient in a world of great-power competition.

The same French agenda can therefore be presented in different political languages.

That is what makes it potentially powerful.

The relationship with the United States remains the central contradiction

Macron’s European strategy still faces its most difficult contradiction across the Atlantic.

France wants Europe to become more autonomous. But European security remains deeply dependent on the United States, particularly in areas such as intelligence, strategic transport, missile defence and military capabilities.

The EU has also sought to preserve economic stability in its relationship with Washington. The current EU-US trade framework has been presented by the Commission as a way to provide greater predictability for European businesses and protect access to the American market.

This creates a delicate balance for Macron.

France cannot simply advocate a European break with the United States. Nor does it want to see Europe become completely dependent on Washington.

The French position is therefore built around a distinction between alliance and dependence.

Europe can remain within the transatlantic alliance while developing greater capacity to act independently when necessary.

This is one of the most difficult political arguments in Europe because it requires governments to pursue two objectives simultaneously: preserve the American security relationship while preparing for a future in which European states may need to take greater responsibility for their own security.

Macron believes that France is uniquely positioned to manage this tension.

Whether other European governments agree remains uncertain.

France’s influence is still constrained by France itself

The greatest obstacle to Macron’s European ambitions may not be Berlin, Brussels or Washington.

It may be France.

Macron’s authority at home remains politically fragile. France faces serious fiscal constraints, domestic political polarisation and uncertainty over the country’s political direction beyond his presidency.

European influence ultimately depends on national capacity.

France cannot indefinitely demand more European investment, stronger defence capabilities and greater industrial intervention without answering the question of how those ambitions will be financed.

Nor can Macron assume that other European governments will accept French leadership simply because France has identified the right strategic problems.

Many member states remain sceptical of Paris.

Some fear that the language of European sovereignty could become a justification for French protectionism. Others worry that a stronger role for the largest member states could marginalise smaller countries. Eastern European governments may support greater European defence capabilities but remain concerned that strategic autonomy could weaken the American commitment to the continent.

Macron therefore cannot win the argument through rhetoric alone.

He needs results.

The real struggle is over what Europe becomes next

The significance of Macron’s current strategy is that it goes beyond individual policy initiatives.

The deeper struggle is over the political model that will define the European Union after the end of the old globalisation era.

One possible future is a more fragmented Europe in which national governments compete for investment, protect their own industries and rely on external powers for security and technology.

Another is a more integrated European power capable of coordinating defence, industrial policy, technology and trade.

France has consistently argued for the second model.

The difference today is that the external environment is pushing more European governments in that direction.

The United States is forcing a debate about responsibility. China is forcing a debate about industrial power. Russia is forcing a debate about defence. The technology race is forcing a debate about sovereignty.

Macron’s central political achievement may therefore be less about persuading Europe to become French than about ensuring that Europe is now debating the questions France has been asking for years.

The French president is trying to turn a series of crises into a new European consensus.

His method is increasingly clear.

Work with Brussels to institutionalise French priorities. Move Berlin towards a more interventionist European economic and security policy. Build wider coalitions with other major powers. Use France’s military and diplomatic capabilities to strengthen the argument for European autonomy.

The strategy will not make France the unquestioned leader of Europe.

But it may make French ideas impossible to ignore.

For years, Macron was criticised for trying to move Europe too quickly.

Now the risk for France is different.

Europe may finally be moving in the direction Macron has advocated — but other countries will also be competing to define what that direction means.

The next phase of European power will therefore not be decided by whether France wins every argument.

It will be decided by whether Paris can turn its ideas into coalitions, institutions and capabilities before someone else defines the new European order.

Source: Élysée