‘Trump is abandoning Ukraine and needs a weaker EU’: Dominique de Villepin on Europe’s second of reality | Martin Gelin

Dominique de Villepin made his title with a memorable speech to the UN safety council in February 2003, simply earlier than the US-led invasion of Iraq. De Villepin, the then French international minister, in impact signalled France’s intention to veto a UN decision authorising the warfare, forcing the US and UK to behave unilaterally. He warned that Washington’s technique would result in chaos within the Center East and undermine worldwide establishments. The prophetic plea was met with applause, a uncommon occasion within the safety council chamber. It led to the profession diplomat’s inclusion as a personality in David Hare’s 2004 anti-war play, Stuff Occurs.

Now the veteran statesman, who warned in regards to the dangers of Europe’s over-reliance on the US a few years earlier than it grew to become a mainstream opinion in Paris or Berlin, is again with recommendation on how to reply to probably the most critical breakdown in Europe’s relationship with the US in 80 years.

As Donald Trump alienates America’s oldest allies at alarming pace, European leaders are scrambling to regulate to the brand new, chaotic world order. However De Villepin believes there’s additionally a possibility for Europe to unite behind liberal democracy and fill the vacuum left behind by the Trump administration. He’s satisfied that there’s an pressing want for European independence in defence, nationwide safety and expertise.

It’s a reflection of the alarm in Europe that Paris, for the final month, has been bustling with visiting diplomats, premiers and heads of state. On Monday Emmanuel Macron grew to become the primary European chief to be welcomed to the White Home since Trump’s return to energy. However Macron has additionally convened world leaders to debate potential new coalitions of nations keen to step in to blunt the implications of Trump’s realignment on Ukraine and his obvious readiness to desert liberal democracy.

Trump’s international coverage is unpredictable, however he seems now to facet with Russia over Ukraine. At the same time as Macron was on the White Home trying to salvage transatlantic ties, the US voted with Russia in opposition to a UN decision condemning Vladimir Putin’s warfare. North Korea and Belarus had been amongst solely a handful of different nations that adopted the US.

“We now have three intolerant superpowers: Russia, China and the US,” De Villepin says. “America can not be thought-about an ally of Europe.” However he warns that the US won’t prosper on this disordered, survival-of-the-fittest world it’s creating, “as a result of they are going to be utterly remoted”.

He sees Trump’s authoritarian flip as each a disaster and a possibility for Europe to unite behind a brand new widespread objective. “The consequence of this can be a European awakening of democracy. We’re going to struggle for liberal democracy greater than ever. As a result of the query now’s actually: sovereignty or submission.”

Attaining European sovereignty sounds logical, however how can we get there? De Villepin suggests a three-point plan for a extra assertive and impartial continent. Step one is to develop a standard defence pact in Europe, with a big enhance to the European defence trade. “We urgently must develop our personal techniques, and never simply purchase from the US.” The second is to extend funding in innovation and tech, as outlined within the Draghi report final yr, which warned of an “agonising decline” for Europe within the absence of an €800bn annual spending enhance. The third step is to strengthen Franco-British collaboration on defence, intelligence, nuclear points and Ukraine, the place De Villepin desires to see clear safety ensures within the occasion of a treaty and ceasefire.

“We now have to take our future in our personal arms,” he says. “Cease believing in illusions. Trump is abandoning Ukraine and [Elon] Musk is supporting extremist actions in Europe as a result of they need a weaker EU. They perceive that Europe is now the primary impediment for his or her imaginative and prescient. And that is, after all, not acceptable.”

Does he help Ukraine’s European – together with French – allies placing boots on the bottom to guard in opposition to a future Russian assault? “As a part of an agreed peacekeeping plan by the worldwide neighborhood, I’d help a French contribution.”

Again in 2003, De Villepin’s impassioned UN speech was delivered throughout the same low level in transatlantic relations, with American neoconservatives renaming French fries “freedom fries” whereas rightwing information organisations labelled France and different European international locations opposing the Iraq invasion an “axis of weasels”.

His problem to George Bush’s US, which drew on the painful wartime historical past underpinning the transatlantic alliance, stays acutely related in 2025. “This message involves you immediately from an previous nation, France, from an previous continent like mine, Europe, that has identified wars, occupation and barbarity,” he informed the safety council in 2003. “A rustic that doesn’t overlook and is aware of all the pieces it owes to the liberty fighters who got here from America and elsewhere. And but has by no means ceased to face upright within the face of historical past and earlier than mankind. Trustworthy to its values, it needs resolutely to behave with all of the members of the worldwide neighborhood.”

Rumours of a De Villepin run for the Élysée in 2027 have been circulating within the French media. He stays coy a few presidential ambition. What is obvious, nonetheless, is that he thinks the subsequent wave of nationwide elections throughout Europe can be determined as a lot by nationwide safety and international affairs as by home points. “Nationwide safety can be an important difficulty for voters, as a result of it’s about liberty, values, whether or not we imagine in sovereignty or submission.”

This appears to be the rationale behind his return to public life – not simply as a possible presidential candidate in France, however because the unofficial spokesperson for what he calls “European sovereignty”. He used the phrase six occasions throughout our 90-minute dialog. “With my background, my opposition to the Iraq warfare and all my expertise of coping with geopolitical crises, I felt that there have been lacking voices talking up for the defence of Europe, the defence of our values, so it was my responsibility to talk up.”

De Villepin belongs to a protracted custom of French politicians sceptical of America’s international supremacy, and now feels vindicated. However he’s not pushing a dogmatic anti-Americanism. He has shut ties to the US, studied there, and emphasises his respect for America’s smooth energy, its universities, its tradition of innovation. “They’re giving that up for this absurd thought of full energy. They’re ignoring historical past. You may by no means win with hearth alone.”

He forecasts that mass protests in opposition to Trump will emerge throughout the US as quickly because the failures of his insurance policies grow to be evident. He predicts, like most economists, that the commerce tariffs will result in exploding inflation and layoffs, and that Trump’s “reckless” international coverage will make the nation a lot weaker. “That is all the time the issue for the nationalists and populists. What I name the precept of actuality.”

The issue, I recommend, is that the far proper is waging warfare on actuality, and it appears to be profitable – at the very least within the US. Within the presidential election final yr, Trump gained the favored vote with a small margin of 1.5 share factors nationwide, however he gained by a mean of 54 factors in “information deserts”, the place few critical native media retailers can be found, in keeping with a examine from Northwestern College.

De Villepin sees this as an pressing name to construct up the European tech trade and encourage independence from US platforms. “Elon Musk desires an entire vassalisation of Europe and European media. So it is a query of our elementary liberties, and our freedom to assume what we need to assume. We have to construct our personal instruments, whether or not it’s LLMs [large language models], social platforms or cloud tech. We now have to grasp that it is a state of emergency.”

Earlier than Germany’s normal election on 23 February, Musk campaigned frenetically for the far proper AfD, however to much less impact than he might need hoped for. The get together was polling at about 20% when Musk embraced it and ended up with 20.8% of the vote. De Villepin doesn’t imagine {that a} Musk intervention in favour of the far proper can be notably profitable in France, both. “Oh, it might be the surest means for Le Pen to lose, if Elon Musk got here right here to marketing campaign along with her.”

Jordan Bardella, the youthful president of Marine Le Pen’s Nationwide Rally get together, cancelled a visit to a rightwing convention within the US after the previous Trump aide Steve Bannon made what seemed to be a Nazi salute on the occasion.

De Villepin predicts that Le Pen will attempt to preserve a long way between herself and Trump’s Maga motion, however he insists they’re ideological twins. “She’s very near Russia. Shut to those concepts. Anti-globalisation, anti-immigration, anti-multiculturalism. In order that they’re utterly linked.”

His personal path to a possible presidential candidacy is perhaps stuffed with obstacles and contradictions. As a pro-Palestinian, average conservative Gaullist, he may battle to get previous the primary spherical. However he clearly sees a political future the place his international coverage expertise will prime most fast home issues.

For now, he says, European nationalists can collect, as they did not too long ago in Madrid, laud Trump and pledge to “make Europe nice once more” – however quickly, he believes, Trump can be a poisonous model in Europe. “This is a chance for Europe to be the voice of stability,” he says. “As a result of right here, we all know the implications of authoritarian nationalism.”