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EDITORIAL. After Berlin, Rome: Paris is at odds with its two main partners within the EU. His room for maneuver suffers.
By Luc De Barochez
Published on
ORn says Emmanuel Macron gloomily since he lost the majority in the National Assembly five months ago. His showdown with Italy around the humanitarian ship Oceanic Viking it must not have lightened his mood. The episode revealed how much the Head of State now embodies on the European scene what the Americans call a lame duck (“lame duck”), that is, a political leader who has become politically too weak to impose his intentions.
After the quarrel with Olaf Scholz, the controversy with Giorgia Meloni: for a President of the Republic who so much wanted to link his name to the European cause, the disagreement with Germany and Italy, France’s two main partners within the Union, rings like a mortifying double setback. The recent warming of…