Abstract
This article analyses the evolution of French foreign and security policy in response to Russia’s war on Ukraine from early 2022 to NATO’s Vilnius summit (June 2023). It introduces the idea of a Zeitenwende à la française and argues that France’s policy has, albeit more gradually than it was the case in other European states, undergone significant shifts. Drawing on a neoclassical realist approach, this article shows that geopolitical factors – namely the balance of power, balance of threat, and considerations regarding influence in Europe – explain France’s policy shifts, particularly on European Union enlargement and NATO membership for Ukraine. Simultaneously, this adaptation allowed continuity regarding the fundamentals of French foreign and security policy, especially strengthening European Union defence and Europe’s role as a powerful global player (Europe puissance). In this context, domestic factors, namely the views of President Macron and strategic culture, created a permissive strategic environment for following the systemic imperative.
Introduction
France’s foreign and security policy is characterised by significant shifts since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. 1 Unlike in other European countries, the shifts in France took place more gradually and were granted less attention. Compared with Germany, where Chancellor Olaf Scholz proclaimed a Zeitenwende (change of an era) three days after the start of the war, there was not a single, unique Zeitenwende moment in France. Rather, France’s policy and approaches towards European security were characterised by a period of adaptation to the new geopolitical environment. The changes in French security policy in reaction to Russia’s war on Ukraine are, however, not less significant: given France’s weight within the European Union (EU) and its position as one of Europe’s most capable countries in terms of security and defence, priorities and action taken in Paris have a considerable potential to shape the future direction of European security and defence. Accordingly, the changes and continuity in French foreign and security policy deserve attention from all those studying not only the country’s strategic priorities, but the security and geopolitics of the continent more broadly. In times of increasing geopolitical tensions, understanding how geopolitical shifts and pressure shape national foreign and security policy appears particularly relevant.
This article introduces the term of a Zeitenwende à la française to describe the parallel occurrence of significant foreign policy priorities and continuity with regard to long-term goals. Moving away from previous positions, France now strongly supports NATO and EU membership for Ukraine, endorsed the idea of a European pillar in NATO, and launched the European Political Community (EPC). Yet, France’s long-term priorities regarding European security and defence remain unchanged, namely promoting defence integration in the EU and a stronger role for the EU as a geopolitical actor.
How can both the significant changes in French foreign policy and the continuity on long-term priorities be explained? Looking at the evolution of French foreign policy from late 2021 to NATO’s Vilnius Summit 2023, this article draws on a neoclassical realist approach, and argues that the shifting geopolitical environment has been the driving factor for continuity and change in French security policy. Neoclassical realism (NCR) assumes that systemic factors – that is, geopolitical factors – set the broad parameters for national foreign and security policy, whereas domestic factors like leaders’ beliefs or strategic culture are intervening factors that impact policy design rather than broad directions. As scholars have paid special attention to the importance of the balance of power and the balance of threat for national foreign policy calculations, this article uses these two variables as potential explanatory factors for continuity and change in French foreign and security policy after the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In addition, it analyses the importance of structural factors on the EU level, namely considerations regarding relative gains in power among EU states, as an additional explanatory factor for France’s security policy.
The empirical work shows that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has significantly changed considerations in Paris regarding the balance of power and threat in Europe. These changed perceptions, in addition to the quest to shape European security in the direction of France’s priorities, explain why France revised its foreign policy positions on EU and NATO membership for Ukraine, became a much more vocal advocate of the European pillar in NATO, and launched the EPC. At the same time, the new geopolitical environment is perceived to have proven France’s calls for more European action in this field right, so that France, to exert leadership in European security, needed to adopt its actions and positions rather than its long-term goals. Besides these systemic factors, domestic factors, most importantly French President Macron’s beliefs and his role in foreign policy, served as catalysts for change and continuity in the country’s foreign policy orientations after the start of Russia’s war on Ukraine. Together with French strategic culture, they hence created a permissive strategic environment for following a geopolitical imperative. With these insights, this article contributes to the empirical literature on French foreign and security policy, as well as more broadly to the literature examining the role of geopolitical factors in national decision-making on European security and defence.
The empirical analysis links developments in French foreign and security policy to shifts in the geopolitical environment. The evidence is gathered through the analysis of primary sources, secondary literature, and insights from French officials gathered through interviews or during roundtables, seminars, or conferences.
Point of departure: France’s security policy and approach towards European security before the war
To assess the extent of a Zeitenwende à la française since the start of the war, it is important to understand where French security policy stood in early 2022. When French president Macron announced the priorities for the French presidency of the Council of the European Union in December 2021, strengthening Europe’s role in the world through a new impetus for foreign and security policy was among the key items of the agenda (European Parliament, 2022). The programme for the presidency mirrored central priorities of French security policy in Europe and beyond, as expressed in the focus on the Indo-Pacific or the ambition to ‘rebuild a relationship of cooperation with the African continent’ (European Parliament, 2022), two regions that are arguably the most important for France outside Europe (Rieker, 2022: 149; Schmitt, 2020: 83). For both regions, France had already planned summits and anchored these in the programme for the presidency, namely the EU–Africa summit and the ministerial forum between leaders of EU member states, the EU institutions, and Indo-Pacific states (French Presidency of the Council of the European Union, 2022: 16). Furthermore, on defence, Paris most importantly envisaged strengthening the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP).
The priorities of for the presidency of the Council of the EU rhymed with Paris’ priorities outlined in the Revue Stratégique (Ministère des Armées, 2017, 2021). So where did French security policy stand before the war? While national strategic autonomy has traditionally been a critical element in French defence policy (Pannier and Schmitt, 2019: 899; 912), so has Europe: France pursues European defence cooperation simultaneously through the EU, NATO, and bilateral and minilateral cooperation outside the institutions. This approach of ‘flexilateralism’ was further reinforced through Brexit (Faure, 2019), and also stems from the fact that French president Macron considers the project of Europe de la défense (a Europe of defence) broader than just the EU (Rieker, 2021: 112). Within the EU, France’s willingness to strengthen security and defence has played out in the idea of ‘extend[ing] the concept of strategic autonomy to the EU – which is consistently viewed in France as a power multiplier’ (Pannier and Schmitt, 2019: 912), and a push for more instruments. For France’s presidency of the Council of the EU, maritime security, particularly in the Indo-Pacific, working on a Space Strategy, and strengthening existing instruments like the European Peace Facility or the Civilian CSDP Compact hence ranked high on the agenda (French Presidency of the Council of the European Union, 2022: 23).
France had stepped up its commitments to the Alliance already earlier after reintegrating its military command in 2009, and adopted a pragmatic approach towards NATO (see Rieker, 2013), which also included participation in the alliance’s deterrence activities (Pannier and Schmitt, 2019: 906). A key reason for this decision was the willingness to leverage NATO membership to implement France’s idea of Europe de la défense, as it saw strengthening especially the European pillar of NATO also as a long-term contribution to the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy (Rieker, 2013: 390–391). While the programme for the French presidency of the Council of the EU did neither include a specific focus on European security in the East or Russia, France had continuously stepped up its engagement at NATO’s Eastern flank. By 2021, France was ‘the second-largest contributor to NATO’s intelligence gathering activities, deploying numerous naval, air, and satellite platforms, from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea, to provide electromagnetic and imagery intelligence’ (Garnier, 2023: 47). Furthermore, France contributed to NATO’s enhanced Forward Presence (eFP), including the Baltic Air Policing mission, to reassure allies (Zima, 2021: 1–2) and took over the lead of NATO’s Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (VJTF), the alliance’s highest-readiness force, for 2022 (NATO, 2021; Schmitt and Tenenbaum, 2023: 360–361). Since 2015, France systematically strengthened its relations with countries at NATO’s Eastern flank through bilateral, minilateral, and multilateral formats across domains and institutions (Kalibataitė, 2022: 15). Yet, Paris maintained the dialogue president Macron had started with Russia in 2018: the update of the National Strategic Review (actualisation stratégique) acknowledges the ‘return of military and strategic competition’ with Russia, but also underlines that, ‘bearing in mind the central role Russia plays for questions that are directly linked to national security interests, France has chosen a balanced response, combining toughness (fermeté) and engagement, which has enabled a lucid dialogue with Russia’ (Ministère des Armées, 2021: 17, 21). To the sharp criticism of NATO partners, he also continued this dialogue during the first months of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine (Caulcutt, 2022). In general, strategic documents warned against Russia’s behaviour as a ‘major motive of concern’ and underlined the risk of escalation in the Donbass region (Ministère des Armées, 2017: 23–24), but did not refer to it as a threat. Rather, jihadi terrorism figured among the top security concerns for Paris, alongside ‘the threats posed by proliferation in all threat domains’, encompassing conventional, chemical and biological, and nuclear weapons (Schmitt, 2020: 57).
Regarding the European security order, and more broadly speaking geopolitics of the European continent, the French position had been characterised by continuity since 2018. At the Bucharest summit, President Macron reaffirmed France’s opposition to EU enlargement: while France saw the perspective of accession of the Western Balkan countries as important to mitigate the influence of Russia or Türkiye in the region, it also underlined the importance of tying enlargement to conditions, most important political reform, and EU reform prior to enlargement (Elysée, 2018). France opposed NATO enlargement based on a geostrategic reasoning: extending the alliance to the East was seen as a potential provocation to Russia (Erlanger and Myers, 2008). Furthermore, France was still convinced that the European security order would have to be constructed with, and not against Russia (Quencez and Cadier, 2023).
Russia’s war on Ukraine has arguably significantly altered the French approach on European security, so that many of these policies and priorities have shifted. The following sections outline the theoretical and conceptual framework, present the shifts as well as elements of continuity, and then assess them based on a neoclassical realist approach.
Theoretical and conceptual framework: An approach linking neoclassical realism and foreign policy analysis
Neoclassical realism: A good theoretical fit for the empirical puzzle
Bearing these pre-war priorities of French security policy in mind, the term Zeitenwende seems suitable to refer to the new approaches in French security policy. But how can the considerable shifts (and continuity) be explained? With the changing geopolitical landscape in Europe, factors like balancing threat or power appear as obvious relevant variables for foreign policy, but it seems important, however, to at least briefly discuss the factors within the ‘black box’ of the state (Toje and Kunz, 2012: 5). This is particularly relevant in the current French political landscape because President Macron has himself actively shaped France’s foreign and Europe policy agenda since first taking office in 2017 (de Weck, 2021; Momtaz, 2020), and because the constitution transfers significant power to the President in security and defence policy (Hellman, 2024: 208; Pannier and Schmitt, 2021: 15).
Neoclassical realism is therefore an excellent theoretical fit to explain French security policy in Europe since the start of the war. It assumes that structural, geopolitical factors set the broad parameters for foreign policy, whereas domestic factors are treated as intervening variables that might have shaped the exact policy design (Rose, 1998: 147). The domestic factors therefore constitute a ‘transmission belt’ between the systemic imperatives, which would impose foreign policy decision based on neorealist policy, and the actual decision (Ratti, 2006: 96). As one of the most comprehensive newer works, the conceptualisation of neoclassical realism by Ripsman et al. (2016) serves as the theoretical basis for this article. Drawing on earlier neoclassical realist scholarship (see, for example, Christensen, 1996; Dueck, 2006; Kitchen, 2010; Lobell et al., 2009; Schweller, 1998; Van Evera, 1999; Wohlforth, 1993; Zakaria, 2001), the authors maintain the state-centric neorealist approach to the international system and the central place of systemic factors, and add domestic factors as ‘intervening variables’ (Ripsman et al., 2016: 140–146). While neoclassical realist works have elaborated on the role of ideas (Kitchen, 2010), perceptions and leaders’ beliefs (Arif, 2021; Dueck, 2006; He, 2017; Wohlforth, 1993), regime type (Juneau, 2015; Snyder, 1991), and identity (Hadfield, 2010) as intervening domestic-level variables, Ripsman et al. state that their impact varies across different dependent variables. For crisis management, foreign policy, and strategic change, dimensions which match the case of France’s strategic shifts assessed in this article, they describe leaders’ beliefs and strategic culture as the most impactful domestic variables because they affect the interpretation of events requiring an immediate foreign policy response (Ripsman et al., 2016: 92; 109–110). In other words, while structural factors related to power and threat set the central imperatives for action, the extent to which they are implemented into foreign policy is impacted by leaders’ perceptions and strategic culture.
Strategic culture, originally defined as ‘the total sum of ideas, conditioned emotional responses and patterns of habitual behaviour that members of a national strategic community have acquired through instruction or imitation and share with each other with regard to nuclear strategy’ (Snyder, 1977: 8), can be understood as worldviews, conceptions, and beliefs of national and international security that are shared both by elites and the broader public; these are normally rooted in the past, but can change over time (Ripsman et al., 2016: 66–68). This article operationalizes strategic culture as (1) the level of a country’s ambition in international affairs (relating to ideas like leadership, geographical priorities, troop deployments abroad), (2) the scope of action for the executive (distribution between executive and parliament, key actors in foreign and security policy), (3) foreign policy orientation (mainly Europeanist vs Atlanticist, relating to preferred formats for cooperation), and (4) the willingness to use military force as an instrument to achieve national security objectives (including the ability to do this) (Biehl et al., 2013: 14–15). Linking France’s strategic culture to this framework, the most important characteristics are its Gaullist tradition: an ambition to play a central role in international affairs and ‘continuing ambitions for great power status’, and to display French grandeur (greatness) through leveraging its partnerships and multilateralism (Hellman, 2024: 204–207). Military interventionism, including the capacity of ‘planning and conducting effective military operations’ (Pannier and Schmitt, 2021: 107), is part of this approach, as well as the central role of the President in decision-making (Pannier and Schmitt, 2021: 15; Pannier and Schmitt, 2019: 898). With regard to European security and defence policy, France’s foreign policy orientation can be clearly described as Europeanist: albeit reintegrating NATO’s military command in 2009 and continuously stepping up its commitment to the alliance, ‘French elites see a clear but not all-encompassing role for the Alliance in the European security architecture’ (Pannier, 2022: 68). The central ambition in Paris remains constructing a Europe de la défense, a Europe of defence, including a stronger role for the EU in defence and drawing on formats of differentiated integration (Pannier and Schmitt, 2021: 132; Rieker, 2021), in order to pursue European strategic autonomy – a key priority of President Macron since 2017 (Elysée, 2017).
Conceptual framework: Application of neoclassical realism as an approach to foreign policy analysis in the European context
NCR enjoys increasing popularity as a theoretical approach in foreign policy analysis. As this article aims to explain change and continuity in French foreign policy, it can be located in the field of policy analysis, which ‘describes and investigates the structures, processes, and outcomes of the purposeful policy initiatives and responses that are conceived by sovereign political entities and directed toward other political units’ (Vertzberger, 2009: 479). By drawing on the neoclassical realist framework, it therefore contributes to the ongoing efforts in the discipline ‘developing foreign policy applications of major IR theories and approaches’ (Mello and Ostermann, 2023: 6). Indeed, realism has been described as a powerful ‘analytical, problem-solving and critical approach to foreign policy analysis’ (Wivel, 2017: 2). By bringing structural and domestic factors together and acknowledging the dominant place of structural factors, ‘neoclassical realism seeks to explain variations in foreign policy over time and space by supplementing the structural assumptions of neorealism with a set of condition variables governing the size of the impact of anarchy and polarity on foreign policy’ (Wivel, 2005: 361). The central challenge of applying realist theory to foreign policy analysis consists in combining ‘structural factors with other variables without ending up with a collection of ad hoc arguments’ (Wivel, 2005: 357). To mitigate this challenge, this article draws on the strategy of an ‘explanatory ladder’, starting at the systemic level and then adding explanatory power through the assessment of the sub-systemic (European) level and the domestic level (see Mouritzen, 2017: 536–538; Wivel, 2017: 13).
Neoclassical realism has sparked ‘considerable enthusiasm’ (Narizny, 2017: 155) over the past decades, and many scholars have acknowledged the value of the approach for foreign policy analysis or applied it directly in foreign policy case studies (Foulon and Meibauer, 2020; Hadfield, 2010; Jørgensen and Ergul Jorgensen, 2021; Martill and Sus, 2024; Meibauer, 2017; Meibauer et al., 2021: 1212–1213; Toje and Kunz, 2012; Wivel, 2005). Particularly balancing the power of Russia (Mouritzen, 2017), balancing the threat from Brexit or the election of Donald Trump as US president (Sweeney and Winn, 2020), abandonment or entrapment by the United States in light of changing strategic priorities (Dyson, 2013), and balancing the threat stemming from Russia or terrorism (Béraud-Sudreau and Giegerich, 2018) have been identified as powerful explanatory variables on the systemic level. In addition, this article includes the European level to the structural variables. Scholars emphasise that national foreign policy decisions regarding European defence policy aim to generate relative gains, or to avoid relative losses, vis-a-vis other European states (Calcara, 2018; Simón, 2017). Similarly, the balance of power inside the EU has been described as a decisive factor for foreign policy decision-making in neoclassical realist works (Cladi and Locatelli, 2021; Nováky, 2016). Including this European perspective seems particularly relevant on the background of France’s active role in shaping European defence (Pannier and Schmitt, 2021: 131–136). As the European literature also underlines the relevance of leaders’ beliefs and strategic culture (Dyson, 2015), as one would expect based on the approach by Ripsman et al., these factors will be treated as intervening variables.
The approach guiding the analysis of this article is hence based on the assumption that France’s foreign policy change and continuity since the start of Russia’s war against Ukraine are the result of threat assessment, France’s understanding of the balance of power, and its considerations regarding power and influence among EU member states. Ripsman et al. describe ‘the relative distribution of power and power trends’ as central explanatory variables (Ripsman et al., 2016: 43); this article adopts a relational approach to power, and operationalises power as the ‘actual or potential relationship between actors’ (Ripsman et al., 2016: 44). Accordingly, it focuses on the French assessment of the current and future distribution of power, and potentially resulting threats, rather than material factors, such as defence spending or gross domestic product (GDP), which seem less relevant in the context of the invasion. France’s strategic culture and leaders’ beliefs will be treated as intervening variables throughout the analysis.
Following a neoclassical realist approach, this article assumes that the observed changes and continuity in French foreign policy are the results of systemic factors, and that domestic factors had an additional moderating impact. Based on the initial assessment of France’s foreign policy priorities before the war and the developments since February 2022, as well as an initial literature review, the analysis focuses on three key areas of change and continuity of French security policy: the organisation of the continent and Europe’s role as a geopolitical actor, including regarding EU enlargement and the launch of the EPC (1); shifts regarding France’s position on Ukraine’s accession to NATO, and the European pillar in NATO more broadly (2); and European defence cooperation within the EU (3). Table 1 sums up the changes and continuity of France’s foreign policy positions in these areas before and after the start of Russia’s war against Ukraine:
Priorities in French security and defence policy before the start of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Source. Own elaboration based on evidence of previous and following sections of this article.
For the sake of readability, references were not included in the table. As the table sums up the information from the previous section (‘Point of departure: France’s security policy and approach towards European security before the war’) and the empirical analysis, all references can be found in these sections.
How can the change and continuity be explained? This article links the outcomes presented above to systemic factors, and hence provides within-case traces (see below) for the causal link between systemic factors and adaptation of security policy. As outlined in the theory section, the existing (neoclassical) realist literature has identified several factors as relevant for foreign policy change in Europe: the threat environment, the balance of power, and relative gains vis-a-vis other European states. These three variables therefore are therefore assessed as potential explanatory factors.
Adapting the methodology: Congruence analysis as a ‘soft’ form of process tracing
As a single-case study of France, this article aims to understand the relationship between systemic factors – that is the threat environment, the balance of power, and relative gains in Europe (as outlined previously) – and change and continuity in French foreign policy since the start of the war, as well as the impact of strategic culture and leaders’ beliefs intervening variables. In other words, it links the policy outcomes to systemic pressures and examines the impact of domestic variables as a transmission belt. Due to the limited scope of the article, which imposed prioritisation of the systemic level (in line with theory) at the cost of the possibility to fully unpack decision-making mechanisms on the domestic level in detail, this article hence applies a form of process tracing often called ‘congruence analysis’. In this method, ‘within-case traces, also sometimes called mechanistic evidence, is produced by asking, if causal mechanism M exists, what observables would it leave in a case’ (Beach and Pedersen, 2019: 52). Mechanistic evidence is therefore defined as ‘any observable manifestation of our theorised causal mechanism(s) that has a probative value in relation to determining whether it was present or not in the case’ (Beach, 2016: 469). Consequently, the article does not aim to contribute to theory-building but rather applies what Beach and Pederson call a ‘theory first’ approach. In this approach, we ‘would flesh out a theory[s]ed causal mechanism (process) that links a cause (or set of causes) plausibly with an outcome. We would then ask ourselves what types of observables each part of the causal mechanism would be expected to leave in a particular case, after which we would engage in an empirical analysis that attempts to assess whether these predicted fingerprints were actually present’ (Beach and Pedersen, 2019: 49). This approach sets this article apart from the narrow definition of process tracing, which emphasises the importance to predict all intervening steps of a mechanism in the hypotheses guiding the research (see George and Bennett, 2005: 191).
The evidence for the argument and for unveiling the within-case traces is gathered mostly through the analysis of primary sources following Mayring’s (2000) approach of qualitative content analysis. Valid sources are accordingly ‘all sort of recorded communication (transcripts of interviews, discourses, protocols of observations, video tapes, documents . . .)’ (Mayring, 2000: 2). In addition to speeches and press statements, this article also used clearly expressed policy positions (such as support for an EU position), official strategic documents, as well as websites from the French government providing background information. Furthermore, it draws on communication on implemented policies. In addition, exchanges with French decision-makers or experts through interviews or in closed-door formats complement these sources and provide additional evidence on the mechanisms leading to the observed outcomes. The analysis was conducted in a deductive way (see Mayring, 2000: 4), drawing on the ideas of neoclassical realism to identify relevant sources and ideas; however, due to the limited scope of the article, it did not use categories, but contextual and interpretive analysis.
Explaining Zeitenwende à la française: Continuity and change in French foreign policy after 24 February 2022
Geopolitical Europe: Constructing the European security order against Russia
The war was seen as a geopolitical shift and a major challenge for the European project in France, leading the country to adapt its foreign policy and vision of Europe as a geopolitical project. The most visible manifestations are the support for EU enlargement and the launch of the EPC, which are both embedded in the idea to construct European security order against, and not with, Russia.
When Russia started to attack Ukraine on 24 February 2022, French president Macron swiftly explained France’s position in a ‘speech to the French’ (addresse aux Français) (24 February 2022) and a speech in front of the national assembly (25 February 2022). In both cases, he underlined the significant geopolitical shifts. The speeches do not explicitly refer to a ‘threat’ from Russia to European security order, but to the protection of Europe and France (Elysée, 2022a; Sénat, 2022). The challenges for Europe and the impact on the European project were the more central theme and matters of purely French security, and the consequence for France was pushing for a European response: to respond to the challenges, Macron hence recalled that ‘the European Union must fully become a power, more sovereign in industrial, technological, and military matters’ (Sénat, 2022). This call translates concretely in a stronger push for EU defence integration (see section on European defence integration below), as well as in a coordination of European states on security without Russia.
Openness to EU membership: Towards Europe puissance
The shifts in the French position on enlargement can be directly explained by the fact that France sees in enlargement a tool to balance Russia, to mitigate the threat from Russia to the European security order, and also to reform the EU in a way that brings it closer to the (French) vision of Europe as a geopolitical power.
Until the start of the war, France had been reluctant to immediate EU enlargement without conditions. The main reasons for this opposition were concerns regarding the fulfilment of the criteria for membership, as well as the EU’s capacity to absorb new members with the existing institutional framework. This opposition particularly manifested with regard to the potential enlargement to the Western Balkan countries: at the Sofia summit in 2018, Macron had clearly expressed that France opposed enlargement without conditions, that enlargement should not take place without political reform in the countries, and that the EU would have to reform prior to enlargement (Elysée, 2018). More generally, the French position before the war was that the EU should give preference to deepening integration before widening membership (roundtable under Chatham House rule (RT2, May 2022). During his speech in early 2022 to the European Parliament, Macron linked this process of reform, and consequential accession, to the outcome of the Conference of the Future of Europe in May 2022 (Elysée, 2022c). This linkage already implied a slight change in the French position, given that the French position – mostly based on Macron’s belief in this regard – had generally been that treaty change was not a necessity, and that much could already be achieved within the framework of the Lisbon treaty. The start of the war then fundamentally changed this perception and also opened a window of opportunity for treaty change (RT2; interview 2).
At the moment of the invasion, EU member states were divided on the question of further enlargement in general. Following the first months of the aggression, awareness grew in Paris that enlargement might have to be conceptualised as a geopolitical instrument (Buras and Morina, 2023: 4). The discourse changed within a few months in Paris: while Macron had underlined during his speech in January 2022 that enlargement was not a tool ‘against’ influence (Elysée, 2022c), it was endorsed as a tool against Russian assertiveness and influence by a senior official just a few months after the invasion (RT2). Furthermore, Macron’s visit to Kyiv before the European Council summit in June 2022, when the EU formally granted Ukraine candidate status, is described to have ‘paved the way for Ukraine to be granted candidate status’ (Leveque, 2023). While France, and Macron himself, had been harshly criticised for its first reactions on the war, the support of membership was seen as important also from a political perspective, allowing France to restore credibility and legitimacy in leadership among Europeans.
Paris hence started to endorse enlargement as a geopolitical tool, which from then on figured in its reflections on the future of Europe as a geopolitical player. Consequently, the government concluded in early summer 2022 that enlargement was a geopolitical imperative for the EU (RT2). For France, ‘the EU with Ukraine could become a powerful geostrategic actor in an increasingly competitive environment and a pillar of the post-2022 European security architecture, not least because Ukraine’s strong army would complement the EU’s efforts to increase its military clout. The EU’s enlargement to the east is thus an important and almost indispensable step to fulfilling France’s long held dream of Europe puissance’ (Buras and Morina, 2023: 4). France’s traditional priorities for European security and defence, which generally aimed at a stronger Europe in the world (Irondelle and Schmitt, 2013: 130–132), hence constituted a permissive environment for the rapid foreign policy change.
Nevertheless, this change was also accompanied by a level of continuity in French foreign policy: albeit signalling openness to enlargement, a ‘whatever it takes-enlargement’ was not acceptable for France; particularly in the early stages of discussions, France regularly underlined the need to anticipate a long accession process (Le Monde with AFP, 2022). Fulfilling the requirements for enlargement, as outlined in the EU treaties, was put forward as a conditio sine qua non for enlargement. In contrast to other EU member states, France also opposed the idea of a ‘fast track’ membership (interview 2). Furthermore, enlargement and institutional reform were seen as a ‘package’ (RT2), and France hence pushed for parallel reflection processes on both topics, arguing that a bigger EU would also have to work more efficiently (Buras and Morina, 2023). Paris considers this combination also as an opportunity: instead of creating a ‘French nightmare vision of the EU being reduced to a free trade area with a parliament’, France now sees enlargement as a tool to strengthen the EU in a way that brings it closer to its vision of European sovereignty (Colonna, 2023; de Weck, 2022). This vision is an intrinsic part of France’s vision for Europe as Europe puissance (Irondelle and Schmitt, 2013), so that the adaptation to the geopolitical shock was coherent with French strategic culture.
The EPC: Balancing Russia’s influence on the European continent through unity cooperation
France’s assessment of the need for reorganising the European security order also went beyond the EU itself, prompting Macron to call for the launch of the EPC. This initiative was strongly driven by a geopolitical reasoning, aiming to contain Russia’s influence while also advancing Europe’s ability to address security challenges on the continent.
The launch of the EPC was first announced by Macron on 9 May 2022 (Europe Day) in front of the European Parliament, where he described the project as a tool to ‘organise Europe from a political perspective and with a broader scope than that of the European Union’ (Elysée, 2022b). This proposal was driven by four factors: the assessment of the failure of the EU’s neighbourhood policy, the stalled enlargement process and the necessity to give a perspective of European integration to candidate countries (albeit without making the EPC an alternative to it, a precision added later), the willingness to socialise the United Kingdom through a forum of cooperation outside the EU, and the willingness to potentially enhance European cooperation on the ‘softer end of security, such as cyber security or disinformation’ (Grant, 2022: 2). In other words, the launch can be described as France’s answer to the question of ‘how Europe could re-structure its continental order’ after the start of the war (Giuashvili, 2023: 3). This was even more important as France anticipated a long war, and aimed to forge European unity in face of the security and energy crisis (Cohen, 2022). In his speech to the diplomatic corps in September 2022, Macron underlined that Europe ‘need[ed] this geopolitical space’ for cooperation on key issues, but also to stop Russia and Türkiye’s influence in the Western Balkans, the non-recognition of these states, and the continuous enlargement of the EU, arguing that the latter would allow the EU to become a more sovereign and autonomous actor (Elysée, 2022d). Accordingly, the launch of the EPC by France can be reasonably described as a tool for balancing Russia, both with regard to its influence and the threat it poses. This hence represents a shift in French foreign policy from the willingness to construct European security with Russia – an ambition still formulated by French president Macron just weeks before the invasion (Elysée, 2022c) – to a construction of European security order without, or even against, Moscow.
While the need for balancing of power and influence in Europe was the driving geopolitical factor behind the decision to launch the EPC, it is noteworthy that French President Macron played an important role for this endeavour (interview 2). The idea first emerged between ‘Macron and Clément Beaune, then his Europe minister and a close confidant, shortly before the speech’ in front of the European Parliament on 9 May (Grant, 2022: 1–2). The launch of the EPC was, in method, similar to previous initiatives taken by president Macron, since the idea was first presented in a speech without previous coordination of briefing of other EU member states (Cohen, 2022; Giuashvili, 2023; Grant, 2022). However, in light of the geopolitical shifts going on in the continent, and the ambition to advance the project of European strategic autonomy, advancing this idea allowed France to consolidate its influence through actively shaping the geopolitical order.
NATO and Ukraine: Balancing threat and seizing a window of opportunity for French leadership
Support for NATO enlargement and Ukraine’s NATO membership: A cost–benefit analysis of balancing Russia and defending Europe
Another significant shift in France’s foreign policy after the start of the war is the strong support for Ukraine’s NATO accession. Before the war, France had generally been opposed to NATO enlargement. At the NATO summit in 2008 in Bucharest, France, like Germany and other European NATO members, vetoed the accession of Ukraine and Georgia to the alliance, expressing concerns about the stability of both countries and that ‘a membership plan would be an unnecessary offence to Russia’ (Erlanger and Myers, 2008). According to then-Prime Minister Fillon, granting NATO membership to Ukraine and Georgia was not seen as ‘the right response to the balance of power in Europe and between Europe and Russia, and [that France] want[s] to have a dialogue on this subject with Russia’ (Reuters, 2008). This position had barely changed until the start of the war, with French senior officials underlining the importance of dialogue with Russia (Institut Français des Relations Internationales, 2021). In December 2022, Macron publicly opposed potential NATO membership for Ukraine as it was seen as a potential provocation to Russia (Ricard, 2022), and later suggested the model of a ‘Finlandisation’ of Ukraine, ‘a status of neutrality designed to take into account Russia’s demands’, just before the invasion during a visit to Kyiv on 7–8 February 2022 (Ricard, 2023).
The shift of France’s position on NATO enlargement was gradual. In the first months of the war, Macron recalled ‘not to humiliate Russia’ (Sabbagh, 2022), as there was still concern in Paris about the balance of power in Europe and the willingness not to shift it in a way that Russia would feel too threatened to accept any negotiations. This was particularly important as France continuously underlines that the conflict will only end around a negotiation table (Colonna, 2023; Elysée, 2023). The breakthrough moment when the shift in France’s position became visible is Macron’s speech at the GLOBSEC conference in Bratislava in May 2023, as he admitted that France had not sufficiently listened to its partners on Europe and underlined the need for Euro-Atlantic integration for Ukraine (Elysée, 2023; The Economist, 2023). Overall, the speech was driven by the idea of a geopolitical awakening of Europe, and the proposed actions were clearly framed in a way to respond to shifting geopolitical dynamics in Europe.
However, the actual decision to greenlight Ukraine’s membership to NATO was, according the French newspaper Le Monde, only taken at a Conseil de Défense (defence council) on 12 June 2023, just weeks before the Vilnius Summit in July (Ricard and Pietralunga, 2023). This reflects the profound shift that has taken place in the Elysée within only a few months, given that Macron had, in December 2022, still underlined that NATO membership for Ukraine was not evident, and that a new European security order should not only be conceptualised through NATO (Ricard, 2022). In fact, several reasons – all based on geopolitical and military assessments – drove this decision. First, France was aware that the military threat from Russia would continue, and that NATO membership would most likely be the most efficient method to ensure continued military support to Ukraine. Accordingly, supporting NATO membership for Ukraine was perceived as a form of security guarantees for the country (Ricard and Pietralunga, 2023). Furthermore, the reasoning evolved over time because France realised that Russia’s aggression would not stop, but also not significantly alter in response to the action taken by Europe to support Ukraine. It was also reassuring for Paris to see that Russia could be pushed further, given that steps like the announcement of EU candidacy status for Ukraine, or the supply of heavy weapons, did not lead to further escalation (RT 4). Given that Ukraine could, as a member of NATO, become a net provider of European security, Paris sees it as a part of future European balancing of the threat from Russia (Quencez and Cadier, 2023). Russia’s increasingly assertive behaviour in the Sahel, which directly undermined France’s foreign policy and military goals, also confirmed Paris’ willingness to increase its balancing efforts vis-a-vis Russian influence (Sjökvist, 2022: 4). While these geopolitical motives drove the decision-making, this policy change was possible thanks to permissive domestic conditions, as the long-term shifts in French strategic culture with regard to NATO had occurred since the re-integration in the military command (see ‘Point of departure: France’s security policy and approach towards European security before the war’ section of this article; Rieker, 2013).
European pillar in NATO: A window of opportunity for French leadership
One of the most noteworthy changes in French foreign policy since the start of the war is that France has become one of the most fervent advocators of Ukraine’s membership in the alliance. This position has come a long way: while Paris had already previously regularly affirmed the importance of NATO for deterrence and territorial defence, the president’s comments on NATO becoming ‘brain dead’ still lingered over France’s action in NATO (The Economist, 2019). Furthermore, France’s approach was generally – strongly driven by Macron – to focus on European cooperation first, and then integrate this in the context of NATO. This was visible in the presentation of France’s priorities for the presidency of the Council of the EU, when Macron called for ‘a European proposal for a new order of security and stability in Europe’, to be ‘construct[ed] among Europeans, then share[d] with our allies in the framework of NATO. And lastly, to propose it to negotiation with Russia’ (Elysée, 2022c). However, these positions have led to staunch criticism particularly from Eastern European allies, questioning the ability to lead in European security that France aspires. At the same time, the war had, to some extent, proven France’s claims that Europeans must do more in security and defence, including on their own, right (Zerka, 2022). Following the criticism, realisation grew in Paris that pursuing this objective, and getting particularly the Eastern European partners on board, would require changing the approach: France linked the calls for stronger European defence – a key priority for Macron since taking office in 2017– to stronger affirmations of the importance of NATO. This narrative was particularly visible during Macron’s speech in Bucharest in May 2023, where he explicitly stressed the need for a ‘Europe of defence’ (Europe de la défense), or a European pillar, within NATO (Elysée, 2023).
The window of opportunity for France to change its strategy accordingly opened because states with strategic cultures traditionally attaching a higher value to NATO, namely Germany and the United States, did not take this action. Accordingly, ‘at a time when the Biden administration and the German government are seen as the main obstacles to Ukraine’s NATO membership, Paris’s support can be interpreted as short-term, tactical opportunism’, where support for Ukraine’s NATO membership could be described as a method of getting ‘ahead of the curve [to win] support and help[. . .] consolidate France’s role in the European order to come’ (Quencez and Cadier, 2023). In other words, the strong support for Ukraine’s membership in NATO allowed France to generate relative gains in terms of influence vis-a-vis other European states, and to consolidate its role and vision for the future security order of the continent.
While the new threat environment, the need to balance Russia, and the void in leadership gave the geopolitical impetus for France’s foreign policy change, the developments in French defence policy in previous years had already paved the way. After having reintegrated NATO’s military command in 2009 again, France had continuously stepped up its involvement in the alliance, up to the point that France led NATO’s VJTF in 2022 (NATO, 2021). Traditionally, strengthening European defence within the EU was a priority of France; enhancing the commitment to NATO through integration of Ukraine does not contradict this objective. Similar to Macron’s beliefs, one can hence reasonably argue that strategic culture did not constitute an obstacle to the shifts in French security and defence policy; however, it can account for continuity, for example, the prioritisation of strengthening European defence through defence integration in the EU. In this sense, France’s strategic culture created a permissive, or at least non-restrictive, strategic environment for the shifts in foreign policy.
The war as a catalyst for implementing the Europe de la défense: Continuity as an indicator of cheap signalling?
For Paris, Russia’s war on Ukraine has confirmed France’s position that Europeans enhance cooperation on security and defence within the EU. France had already been pushing for this before the war (Pannier and Schmitt, 2021: 131–136; Zerka, 2022), which then served as a catalyst for this approach.
France’s position on EU defence cooperation is characterised by a high degree of continuity. Strengthening European defence had already been among the priorities of the French presidency of the Council of the EU, with a focus on the adoption of an ambitious Strategic Compass and crisis management (European Parliament, 2022; French Presidency of the Council of the European Union, 2022). The start of the war forced France to adapt to the geopolitical context, but the perception of a common threat and the need to collectively address it allowed France to push the project further than originally anticipated (RT2, interview 1).
During the preparation of the presidency, ensuring a high level of ambition for the Strategic Compass was a central task for French officials. Although the process itself, such as the threat analysis and the work with the presidencies in the trio, was seen as positive, the French government was concerned that other member states could become wary to push a document with a significant amount of concrete and ambitious benchmarks over the finish line (RT1, interview 1). While the last version of the Strategic Compass significantly changed the threat assessment, with much stronger emphasis on Russia than other regions of the world, the mobilisation of other EU member states for the process allowed France to maintain continuity in its approach.
Similarly to the strategic dimension, France could continue to shape European defence cooperation in other realms, most importantly capabilities, according to its preferences. For France, the war underlined the salience of its proposals to enhance cooperation among EU member states in matters like capability development or defence industrial cooperation, and thereby opened a window of opportunity for French leadership in this field. Three weeks after the start of the war, France convened a special summit dedicated to questions of European defence in Versailles. The French push for a stronger EU response found its way in the final communiqué (European Council, 2022). The war, and the change of threat perceptions within Europe, rendered the French position to enhance cooperation within the EU more legitimate in the perception of European countries. While the Versailles summit was just an initial manifestation of this, similar patterns could be observed over the following year. Initiatives from other states for enhancing European defence cooperation within the EU, for example, through joint ammunition procurement proposed by Estonia (ASAP proposal), were highly welcomed by France, and seen as a confirmation that the ‘Europe of defence’ was now moving increasingly in Paris’ preferred direction of travel (interview 2). Accordingly, France could push European defence more in its preferred direction – namely doing more within the EU – than expected at the start of the presidency (RT2). By boosting France’s pursuit of its long-term objectives on European defence, the war accounts for continuity in French foreign policy. This continuity can also be seen as a result of geopolitical factors, given that the converging threat perceptions in Europe made significant changes or adaptations obsolete, and gave legitimacy to continuity of the existing positions. As these positions were based on France’s long-term priority for strengthening EU defence as well as Macron’s willingness to push this endeavour further, it seems, however, more salient to see the changing threat environment as an additional boost for the French position, rather than a conditio sine qua non.
The stability of the long-term preferences has sparked questions about the sustainability of the change in France’s foreign policy positions. Concretely, the comparatively low military support 2 for Ukraine in the first year of the war (Trebesch et al., 2023: 37), the lack of a clear prioritisation of threats in the 2022 update of the Strategic Review (Briant and Negrus, 2022), and a massive increase of defence spending in the 2023 military planning law to adapt the French army to high-intensity warfare (Tenenbaum, 2023) led to accusations of France lacking ‘serious international moves’ in reaction to the war (Atlantic Council, 2023: minute 46:25 of the conversation with Polish Prime Minister Morawiecki). These arguments hence create a competing hypothesis of cheap talk, meaning a behaviour that does ‘not require the signaller to make any significant investment to reinforce its position’ (Thyne, 2006: 941). Ideal types of costly signals consist in ‘tying hands’ signals, where shifting away from the signal creates audience costs, and ‘sunk cost’ signals, where costly investments such as the mobilisation of troops or defence acquisitions are made without the certainty of being used (Fearon, 1997: 69–70).
In contrast, supporting Ukraine’s accession to NATO did not imply a direct political cost for France, particularly as the United States opposed this endeavour and rendered it significantly less likely (Rosenbach et al., 2023). Furthermore, the EPC remained an inter-governmental political forum, which generated neither binding nor materially costly outcomes (see European Parliamentary Research Service, 2022). However, one can reasonably argue that the shifts in French foreign policy, despite the continuity of the long-term preferences, were more than cheap talk, particularly when it comes to the shift regarding EU enlargement. Although French policymakers consistently underlined the necessity of a structured enlargement process and fulfilling the conditions, the government was aware of the long-term costs of its foreign policy change: the massive investments needed to ensure cohesion, the implications for a changing balance of power within the institutions, and the need to revise policies such as the Common Agricultural Policy (RT2; interview 2). Furthermore, the verbal commitments of the French governments could be described as costly ‘tying hands’ signals, as the government created the risk of domestic audience costs if its management of a foreign policy crisis was perceived as a failure (Fearon, 1997: 70). A similar argument could be applied to EU enlargement: for the French government, granting Ukraine EU candidate status had to be more than a lip service to avoid blocked situations as seen in the past with other candidate states (RT2). Retrospectively, the steps taken by France after the Vilnius summit, such as the creation of a special fund for supporting Ukraine bilaterally through the French defence industry, the delivery of heavy weapons, additional commitments to NATO’s Eastern flank (Weber, 2024) further weaken the hypothesis of cheap talk. However, these measures were adopted after the Vilnius summit, so that drawing on them as ex-post evidence to exclude the alternative explanation of cheap talk would be methodologically flawed and questionable. For a thorough understanding of the French reasoning at the time of the Vilnius summit, and to further test the hypothesis of cheap signalling, further in-depth research would be required, and would make an important contribution to the field.
Another question that remains not fully addressed by this article is why the foreign policy change in France was more gradual than in other European countries. A suitable framework to analyse which forces impeded or slowed down change in the beginning could be offered by Hermann’s concept of stages in foreign policy change. This framework links strategic stimuli – and is therefore highly compatible with a neoclassical realist framework – to the subsequent stages of policy change, most importantly the establishment between a problem and a policy, the development of alternatives, consensus-building and policy implementation (see Hermann, 1990).
Conclusion
This article shows that considerations regarding the balance of power between Europe and Russia, balancing the threat from Russia, and relative gains for France in Europe – most importantly in the form of French leadership – account for the significant changes in French foreign policy in response to Russia’s war on Ukraine.
To respond to the threat Russia posed to the European security order, France hence started to actively support Ukraine’s integration in NATO, which, according to French calculations, would not only send a signal towards Russia, but also prove less costly for Europeans willing to ensure Ukraine’s security, while making Ukraine itself a security benefit for NATO. Similarly, Russia’s aggression has prompted France to change its reasoning on European integration based on calculations regarding the balance of power. While EU enlargement, just as NATO enlargement, had previously been perceived as a potential source of imbalance in the European security order, Russia’s invasion, which according to France destroyed the previously existing security order, now required balancing through a stronger EU. Enlargement was perceived as the suitable tool to do so, even more as this approach was in line with the general French preferences for strengthening the EU as a geopolitical actor. Russia’s increasingly assertive behaviour towards other European states outside the EU, including foreign interference, led Paris to the realisation that Russia’s influence in Europe beyond the EU needs to be contained; the political result of this realisation was the launch of the EPC. Before the start of Russia’s war against Ukraine, France had generally been cautious about NATO enlargement or EU enlargement, nor intense engagement with non-member states outside the EU or NATO, arguing that these could be perceived as a provocation by Russia and hence pose a challenge for the European security order. As Russia’s attack on Ukraine undermined this French conceptualisation of the European security order, Paris changed track: the fact that the continuous European support for Ukraine did not lead to an escalation was seen as a confirmation that balancing Russia’s influence through different channels was the salient foreign policy response.
Changing its strategy in that way also allowed France to generate relative gains in terms of influence vis-a-vis other EU member states. Having previously been reluctant to further EU enlargement before deepening integration, Paris realised the need for Ukraine’s EU integration for geopolitical reasons, but also saw a window of opportunity in the fact that EU enlargement, if paired – as requested by France – with treaty change, was a major opportunity to bring the EU closer to the French vision of Europe puissance, Europe as a power in the world. Similarly, switching gears on NATO enlargement, from opposition to frontrunner, was seen as an opportunity for France to shape the future of the European security order instead of following others. Accordingly, the Zeitenwende à la française is characterised by considerable shifts on the next steps and necessary action for European security and defence without challenging France’s overall approach towards European security and defence. While revising its position on EU and NATO enlargement, launching the EPC, and changing the narrative on the European pillar in NATO, Paris has not changed its commitment and approaches to strengthening European security and defence cooperation, and maintains its stronger role for the EU as a geopolitical actor. This continuity can be seen as an interplay between geopolitical and domestic factors, namely strategic culture and the beliefs of French president Macron: in fact, Paris sees the geopolitical developments as a confirmation of its calls for strengthening European capacities to defend Europe, and to make the EU a stronger actor in the world. These ideas have been present in French foreign policy over decades, so that one can reasonably argue that the geopolitical factors have further boosted them and can account for the continuity.
In this context of strategic imperatives, French president Macron’s beliefs on foreign and security policy, as well as French strategic culture, have created a permissive strategic environment for change and continuity, but their impact can be described as moderating or intervening. In fact, it is noteworthy that a key narrative of Macron’s agenda has remained stable despite the war. Since taking office in 2017, Macron has continuously repeated his calls for achieving European strategic autonomy 3 – defined as the ability to act autonomously, if necessary, and with partners, wherever possible. Part of this quest was that Macron regularly urged Europeans to step up their own ability to act in the field of security and defence. Although Russia’s attack on Ukraine hence constituted a strategic imperative to adapt previously taken decisions, such as the bilateral dialogue with Russia, these decisions rhymed with Macron’s overall beliefs on the importance of Europe as a geopolitical player, and the ability of Europe to play a role in geopolitics. Indeed, many foreign policy decisions were framed in this way in the central speeches. Accordingly, one can reasonably argue that leaders’ beliefs, in the case of Macron as ‘think tanker in chief’ of French foreign policy (Momtaz, 2020), did not constitute an obstacle to adaptation in reaction to geopolitical shifts. As leaders’ beliefs are only analysed as an intervening variable in this article, the question of Macron’s exact role, and whether his beliefs and worldviews potentially constituted a catalyst for decision-making, cannot be concludingly answered. However, the analysis of the beliefs Macron is described to hold, as well as the framing applied to foreign policy decisions, lead to the conclusion that his worldviews constituted at least a permissive environment for following the realist imperatives related to the balance of power, the balance of threat, and the quest for French leadership in Europe.
The findings of this article constitute a valuable starting point for future research. First, additional empirical work on the evolution of French foreign policy under Macron, including on other geographic areas like the Sahel or the Indo-Pacific – two priority areas for French security and defence policy – could generate insights into whether the ‘realist imperative’ as a driver is limited to France’s reaction to Russia’s war on Ukraine, or whether it is a more general pattern in French foreign policy. Furthermore, a comparison of the findings through a replication of the research framework on other countries in Europe, especially the United Kingdom and Germany, could contribute to an understanding of the role of geopolitical factors for the elaboration of security and defence policy in Europe. This seems particularly relevant for policymaking, as additional insights on eventually converging reflections on balancing threat or power could help identify windows of opportunity for European cooperation. Finally, from a theoretical perspective, additional foreign policy analyses based on neoclassical realist frameworks could contribute to advance the scholarship in the discipline, particularly in Europe. Given that many of the more recent studies drawing on neoclassical realism focus on foreign and security policies of Asian countries, further research could also inspire cross-regional comparison between Asian and European countries. This article therefore constitutes a starting point for further assessing variation in how European states react to changes related to the balance of threat, the balance of power, and relative gains in Europe. More generally, the framework developed in this article can inspire future research to answer the question of whether there is a distinctly European approach to respond to strategic imperatives.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
The author thanks Dr Monika Sus and Dr Benjamin Martill for their invaluable feedback and guidance throughout the writing and submission process, Dr Benjamin Kienzle for the additional feedback and suggestions, and the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
