the times | Tuesday May 17 2022 13News
When Ukraine’s Kalush Orchestra won
the Eurovision Song Contest on Satur-
day, French social media filled with
scorn. The public vote was obviously
truqué (faked), according to a deluge of
posts. This was done to serve the inter-
ests of America and its European fol-
lowers, they implied or said outright.
The view fits with the cynicism found
everywhere on social media, but in
France it reflects an attitude to the war
in Ukraine that differs from that of
northern and eastern Europe and the
English-speaking world.
You hear it in café chatter and from
the neighbours. “Of course it’s the
Americans who’re running this war,”
my Paris barber told me last week. It
comes on talk shows, from academics
and, in milder form, from President
Macron himself. The argument holds,
in varying degrees, that Russia’s inva-
sion is wrong and barbaric but Presi-
dent Putin was provoked by the Amer-
ican-led Atlantic alliance and its “hu-
miliation” of Moscow since the 1990s.
Take, for example, the words of
Hélène Carrère d’Encausse. She is no
fringe tweeter, but head of the Acadé-
mie Française, the guardian of the
French language. The Russian invasion
did not come out of the blue, the
92-year-old historian said, adding: “It
came from the humiliation of the Rus-
sians. After the collapse of the Soviet
Union, no one helped their country out
of its disaster.”
Hubert Védrine, a former foreign
minister, also blames the war on the
“high-handed arrogance” of the west-
ern allies.
Most French people are appalled by
the suffering in Ukraine. They deplore
Putin’s invasion and, collectively, have
taken in 70,000 refugees, but the view
remains nuanced. State radio and tele-
vision use milder language on Russia
than heard on English-speaking out-
lets. Since Ukraine has held off the Rus-
sians, a consensus, promoted by Ma-
cron, holds that Putin must be offered a
face-saving exit involving concessions
by Kyiv. Washington, aided by its Brit-News
Public scepticism
helps Russia find
friends in France
Charles Bremner Paris ish sidekick, is pushing Europe into
dangerous confrontation with Moscow,
many in France believe.
Finland’s and Sweden’s embracing of
Nato represents American victory at
the expense of Europe and risks goad-
ing Putin towards a nuclear strike, the
argument goes.
French commentators have started
talking about “the American war”.
André Kaspi, emeritus professor of
American history at the Sorbonne, said:
“For the United States, this war in
Europe is excellent business.”
Paris has been largely aligned with
Berlin’s prudence over Ukraine but,
with visits by German officials starting,
France is beginning to look isolated.
Zelensky complained for the first
time about Macron at the weekend,
telling Italian television that the French
president had asked him to help Putin
to save face. “We won’t help Putin save
face by paying with our territory. That
would be unjust,” he said.
The Élysée Palace denied Zelensky’s
claim. Nevertheless, Macron did tell
the European parliament this month
that the war must end with negotiation
and not “humiliation”.
France’s ambivalence towards Russia
and suspicion of the “Anglo-Saxons”,
springs from a thousand years of ances-
tral rivalry. It dates more recently from
the late Charles de Gaulle’s withdraw-
ing France from the Nato command in
1966 and his cultivation of a special re-
lationship with Moscow to balance the
power of Washington.
Russia has worked hard since Putin
became president in 2000 to exploit the
Gaullist legacy to extend its influence
in France. It has cultivated ties with
conservatives such as Marine Le Pen,
leader of the National Rally, and turned
the French-language version of Russia
Today, the Kremlin’s foreign media
arm, into a local force favoured by the
Gilets Jaunes protesters. Before Macron
shut RT down in February, it was busy
converting its French following to the
Kremlin’s Ukraine propaganda.
Russian troll farms are also suspected
of boosting the French online frenzy
against Ukraine’s Eurovision triumph.Anglosphere is making a real difference while EU leaders dither
already be over. And we would be
looking at a weak, dismembered and
Russian-controlled Ukraine.
Monologues on Ukraine’s
“European future” from EU leaders
are not stopping Russian tanks or
crippling Russian artillery. It is not
the EU that is preventing the
subjugation of Ukraine. Rather, it is
the arms, materiel and intelligence-
sharing provided promptly, and
without conditions, by the
Anglosphere — the United States
and Britain in particular — that has
been crucial in giving Kyiv’s soldiers
a fighting chance at freedom.
In the first month of the conflict,
the military support proffered by the
US — nearly $4.4 billion — was
more than double that offered by EU
member countries and European
institutions combined. And that was
before President Biden’s request to
Congress for a further $20 billion in
direct military support, with an
additional $12 billion for economic
and humanitarian assistance.Even Britain — yes, unreliable,
detached, infuriating Britain —
provided Ukraine with more
military aid in that pivotal period
than any EU member country. And
that support was recently expanded
after Boris Johnson addressed the
Ukrainian parliament.
Such has been the speed of
Britain’s response that even
President Zelensky acknowledged
other western countries should
“follow the example of the United
Kingdom”.
So much for Washington and
London not caring about Europe.
Remarkably, while the US and
UK are busy helping to arm
Ukraine and protect European
democracy, the EU’s only
nuclear force — France —
remains largely
unforthcoming on military
aid. And support from
Europe’s largest economy
continues to be dragged out of
Berlin like one of those half-empty Bundeswehr supply depots,
while Italy, as always, remains
visible but hopelessly irrelevant.
Even the EU countries providing
meaningful materiel to Ukraine —
Estonia, Poland, Lithuania, Slovakia
and the Czech Republic chief among
them — are facilitated by the US
replenishing (and modernising)
their military stocks. This approach
has allowed Czech tanks, Slovak air-
defence systems and much more to
make a difference on the ground in
Ukraine — an approach eventually
adopted by Germany as part of the
wider
US-led international coalition.
But the real lesson to be drawn
from all this is that rhetoric
about European “strategic
autonomy” is a Parisian
fantasy given oxygen by
Brussels.
Brexit has left the EU bereft
of a member with world-leading military and intelligence-
gathering capabilities. However, the
conflict ensures that British armed
forces — and equipment — will
have to remain an important
element of the EU’s collective
security strategy, regardless of the
prevailing political climate.
And most importantly, this war
has shown that Nato, underpinned
by the US and Britain, and with
eastern European members as its
bedrock, is the future of European
security. A Scandinavian-Baltic arc,
possibly including Finland and
Sweden, stretching from the Baltic
to the Adriatic, will be
overwhelmingly supplied with US
equipment, British intelligence and
Nato logistical support.
The future leadership of Europe’s
defence must lie in its east, but for
Brussels, the challenge now is to
match its grandiose self-image with
the realities of an Anglosphere-
dominated defence of Ukrainian
freedom — and of European values.For this to occur, a little humility
is required. The EU won’t be capable
of defending itself any time soon. It
cannot project power in its
immediate neighbourhood, nor act
as a significant military partner for
the US or Britain.
Brussels should be wooing
Washington, London, Canberra and
Ottawa — not scorning them.
Announcing the delivery of
armoured vehicles to Ukraine, Scott
Morrison, the Australian prime
minister, said he believed “this fight
is important because not only are
Ukrainian lives and their lands at
stake, but so are the principles of
freedom and the rule of law”.
And the only way the EU will
survive is if the Anglosphere keeps
supporting these principles that
inspired its establishment.
Dr Eoin Drea is senior research
officer at the Wilfried Martens
Centre for European Studies. This
article was first published on
Zelensky has praised Britain POLITICOSIR QUENTIN BLAKE/BONHAMSArt with heart Forty drawings by Sir Quentin Blake, many of them featuring the blue and yellow of the Ukrainian flag,
have gone up for sale through the Bonhams auction house. The illustrator has donated the works, which have estimates
of between £800 and £5,000, to raise money for the Ukraine Appeal run by the charity Hope and Homes for Children