From Gaza to Greenland, French President Emmanuel Macron seems to be taking more and more diplomatic stakes in the foreign policy of President Donald Trump, although such gestures have not “weight”, as Trump noted last week after the French leader stated his intention to recognize a Palestinian state.
Charles de Gaulle was the long-term leader of France in the 1950s and 1960s and was famous resistant to the American global dominance, withdrawn his country from the military command structure of NATO in an attempt to increase his military independence and criticize the American policy in Eastern Europe and Vietnam.
Trump rejects Macron Move while US un Summit skips to the Palestinian state
Macron met Trump in Washington on the third anniversary of the full military invasion of Russia in Ukraine. (Tasos Katopodis/Getty images)
Such contrary actions, said Mendoza, “defined the French fifth Republic in many ways, with more than life -sized characters who bump their views on the world stage.
“The difference is now that France matters much less worldwide than 60 years ago,” he said, adding that a weakening of the economy of the European country and its soldiers means that where the Gaulle could once roar, now Macron Jank. ”
“What was once a sign of French strength and trust now seems more like a desperate attempt to escape irrelevance,” said Mendoza.
In a dramatic announcement last week, Macron said that during the United Nations General Meeting in September France intends to explain her recognition of a Palestinian state, even while Palestinian terror groups continue to fight Israel in the Gaza Strip.
Palestinians wear bags and boxes with food and humanitarian auxiliary packages delivered by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a US-supported organization, in Rafah, Southern Gaza Strip, June 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
The explanation gave conviction of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said such a movement “terror” rewards.
It was also criticized by State Secretary Marco Rubio, who called the decision “reckless” and “a slap in the face of the victims of October 7”. He said that the US strongly rejected such a plan.
Trump only rejected Macron’s Gaza movement and told reporters in the White House on Friday “What he says does not matter.”
“He is a very good guy. I like him, but that explanation has no weight,” the president said.
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This is not the first time that the President Macron has discounted as unimportant.
Last month, after the French President
In the same post, Trump said that Macron was ‘looking for publicity’.
French President Emmanuel Macron gestures while he is on the Glacier Mont Nunatarsuaq during a visit to Greenland on June 15, 2025. (Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty images)
The worrying comments came after Macron immediately encountered Trump’s foreign policy by stopping on the way to the top in the semi-autonomous Arctic territory of Greenland, which Trump said he wants to acquire.
“Greenland should not be sold, not to take,” Macron stated in a diplomatic stitch in Trump’s foreign policy and apparently an attempt to collect support from other European countries to reschedule the US
Asked about Trump’s ambitions for Greenland, Macron said, according to Reuters, said: “I don’t think that is what allies do … It is important that Denmark and Europeans are committed to this territory, which has very high strategic interests and whose territorial integrity must be respected.”
In February the French president brought his first visit to the White House since Trump’s return, and although the meeting seemed to be warm, it was also amid tension about the American approach to the war in Russia-Ukraine.
Hours before the meeting the US voted against a resolution of the United Nations drawn up by Ukraine and the European Union that Russia condemns for its invasion.
President Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron shake Hand during a joint press conference in the East Room in the White House on 24 February in Washington, DC (Tasos Katopodis/Getty images)
The tensions between Macron and Trump are not personal, said Mendoza, but they are not entirely ideological either.
They come from Macron’s “desire to be relevant and to stand for something,” he said. “The French are famous opponents, but they do it because of the fact that they are an opponent.”
Reuel Marc dish, a resident scholar at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, the Washington, DC, think tank, said that Macron was not “different from most European leaders. … Trump is just not their cup of tea.”
“Most of them consider Trump as a convulsive, hostile power that regards the historical relationship of America with Europe as a transaction,” he said.
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“Macron, like most French leaders, partially defines himself against the US,” added dish, and explained that, traditionally, France and America “had a” mission civilizer “or a competitive lighting mission.”
“The American way has been extremely attractive in Europe since the Second World War, but it has been partially delivered at the expense of the French, who have lost a lot of scope to the anglophones, especially the Americans,” he said. “Consequently, many French people have a love-hate relationship with the US”
On Macron, the dish added: “He is part of the French elite. They are a clear party that beats far above their weight, but educational, temperamental they are almost the opposite of Trump.”
