The Price of Overpromising: Macron, Palestine, and Europe’s Autonomy Illusion
Macron made a big show of over the past few months about how France was going to recognize Palestine during the Two State Solution conference that it will cohost along with Saudi Arabia next week. The French president stated that recognition of Palestine as “a moral duty and political requirement,” conveying strong messages of a shift in French -and potentially European- policy toward the Middle East.
And yet this weekend, it seems that Paris succumbed to the combined pressure of Washington, Berlin, and the UK to step back from its position and rebrand the conference goals as creating a pathway to recognition of Palestine instead. Essentially, falling back into the holding pattern that everyone who has worked on Middle East issues is all too familiar with: dangling the promise of recognition as if it were a prize, while attempting to gain points with the Global South without making any significant commitments.
But this step by France, the overpromise and then backpedaling, may have deeper implications for French foreign policy than is immediately apparent.
To understand why lets look at the context first.
The Search for Strategic Autonomy
President Macron has been very vocal in his drive for European strategic autonomy for several years. Even as Euro-American relations were at the peak of their alliance with the start of the Ukraine-Russia war, and the united Western front of Europe and U.S. stood side by side, he clamored for Europe to seek greater autonomy and reduce its reliance on U.S. support.
As President Trump took office, and Washington pivoted its entire global outlook, other leaders joined the calls for strategic autonomy, and Europe scrambled to take steps toward this goal. They began various initiatives simultaneously involving their economic and military sectors. They have reached out to partners in Asia and the Middle East for trade, and reprioritized procuring military equipment from European producers, all while working to enhance European interoperability outside of the NATO framework.
One key element of this strategic autonomy is separating European positions both from American and collective Western ones. Europe has been viewed largely as orbiting the American sphere of influence, no more so than during the Ukraine-Russia war, which Europe had opposed in its early stages; Germany and France had been reluctant to support the adversarial American position toward Russia, but ultimately caved to Washington’s diplomatic pressure and lined up behind it in late 2021.
European leaders therefore needed to discard this mantle of American proxy in the eyes of potential partners across the world. Macron and others have sought to achieve this by striking out and engaging with their counterparts across the international arena to reposition their countries and their bloc as active shapers of the international order, and as viable alternatives to the two global superpowers.
And this is where Macron’s push for Palestine comes in. He did not suddenly realize that Israel has been violating international humanitarian law and committing gross violations of human rights throughout its onslaught on Gaza and beyond. Rather, he identified in Palestine an opportunity to reconnect with the Global South, where Europe’s tattered credibility has been fraying in the breeze for years.
In co-hosting the Conference for the Two State Solution along with Saudi Arabia, he seeks to position France at the forefront of engagement with the Global South. Macron, and other European leaders, have recognized after years of futile efforts to bring about support for the European position on the Ukraine Russia war, that Europe has no credibility beyond its borders. It is largely perceived as duplicitous, not because it seeks to achieve its interests (every state in the world has that same goal), but because it insists on decorating its intents with claims of virtues, order, and appeals to morality.
By shifting to a more overtly pro Palestine position, he hopes to portray France and by extension Europe, as more balanced in its global outlook. Had he stuck to the script, and avoided over committing, he may have been able to build on that gradually and forge a more credible image over the near to medium terms. He has, in the interim, engaged heavily with Egypt elevating the relationship in his recent visit to Cairo to a strategic partnership, and courting Asian partners in his keynote speech at the Shangri-La Dialogue.
However, Macron’s enthusiasm seems to have gotten the best of him and he made several statements on the necessity of recognizing a Palestinian state, and claimed that France would do so during the upcoming conference. This was a mistake that ultimately will backfire against his goals.
The Limits of Autonomy
The French president’s early overcommitment put him in a bind. He raised expectations over the past few weeks, tying the recognition of Palestine to moral duty , and all but committing France to that course of action.
Unfortunately for him, he has found the limits of foreign policy autonomy as it pertains to France both within and outside Europe. Despite his best efforts, he ultimately succumbed to the tremendous pressure from Washington, Tel Aviv, London and Berlin. As the conference approaches, with days separating us from its beginning, Paris has been forced to reconsider its position.
Rather than doubling down on his initial plan to recognize Palestine, France has instead recast the conference as one where a ‘pathway to recognition’ will be explored. This pathway to recognition has been an ever elusive mirage that has mired the region in turmoil, dangled as a carrot to encourage concessions, without securing any serious commitments in return. Essentially, this conference, before it has even begun, has regressed from one where France has a chance to show leadership and exhibit a degree of independent decision making, to one where the spotlight will shine on what Macron did not (could not?) do.
Any advisor worth his political salt could have told Emanuel Macron that Washington would not let this pass without a fight. The U.S. has secured a nigh unprecedented level of influence in the Middle East and is not about to let Europe slip in through the back door. With the recent visit of President Trump to the region, the U.S. consolidated its alliance with the Gulf Arab states, while Israel remains in a state of nigh total dependence on American support for its security, while Washington navigates a nuclear deal with a weakened Iran. Essentially, the U.S. has strategic command of the region and will not easily cede any part of that to any party, ally or rival.
To think that Washington would allow Paris to slip into the Arabian – and Southern- spotlight by recognizing Palestine and gaining a foothold in the region through its political repositioning would be political naivete of the highest order.
At the same time, the UK and Germany both have vested interests in the status quo, with the latter in particular firmly set against anything that could lead to European actions contrary to Israeli policy regardless of what it may be. Recognition of Palestine by a European powerhouse like France could tilt the scales and drive more of the bloc toward recognition, pushing it toward responsibilities in weapon exports and other forms of cooperation that would negatively impact their economic and strategic interests in the region.
Essentially, Macron has inadvertently found and cast a spotlight on the extent of French autonomy; Paris, the message reads, is beholden to Washington and the collective European position. It cannot make a decision on this matter independent of those actors.
Rather than convey to the world a message of French independence and autonomy, Macron’s backpedaling has instead told the world that he has failed to achieve it.
Better to Not Have Talked a Big Game
Macron’s statements raised eyebrows across the geopolitical ecosystem. Had Europe actually broken free of the U.S. orbit? Is France putting money where its mouth is when it comes to rebuilding Europe’s credibility? Does Europe actually offer a potential alternative to global superpower dynamics?
While there was a buzz around these statements, no one held their breath for too long. It seemed too rushed; would France risk alienating Washington further at a time when Euro-American relations were already strained by economic disputes and disagreements on military spending, and a growing chasm in perspective on the Russia Ukraine war?
Macron raised expectations through his statements and comments on the necessity of rebuilding European credibility by having a consistent position rooted in the norms and values of the international order.
These elevated expectations put France in a position of strength. They signaled that Paris had taken steps to achieve true differentiation of policy from its previous posture as a member of the collective West. The French president doubled down on this position during the Shangri- La Dialogue, insisting that Europe had to rebuild its credibility while calling on partners from the Global South to work with it to maintain the international order.
And this is where he went wrong. He raised expectations too far. By making this issue an important aspect of France’s autonomy of decision making, he instead showed how much France lacked that autonomy when he backpedaled the decision and reverted to the comfortable, convenient, and familiar approach of ‘working toward’ recognition instead.
Had he not made such bold claims from the beginning, he would not have had to backpedal, and the focus would have been on even minimal tangible progress achieved during the conference. However, given that the goalposts had been set toward recognition, anything short of that will now look like a relative failure. Not only of the conference, which is unlikely to achieve anything on the ground, but of France as an effective global actor.
Further, his nigh compulsive insistence on tying his decisions and those of his government to moralistic imperatives only highlights how low on the priority list these moral imperatives are when confronted with interests. By stating that recognizing Palestine is a ‘moral duty’ and then not doing so, he essentially falls short of his own self stated moral guidelines when faced with pressure.
It appears that the French President underestimate how much pressure he would face when he initially made the statement that France would recognize Palestine. in seeking to leverage his position on the global arena, he instead highlighted the actual weight of France when compared to power brokers across the globe.
Backpedaling now makes it clear that France overstepped its bounds, and that it was reined back in. It signals that France, regardless of how much it postures, clamors, and claims, has limited operational autonomy on key foreign policy issues across the globe. It confirms suspicions that Paris is susceptible to pressure and beholden to other decisionmakers, chiefly Washington. Rather than the reliable ally it sought to present itself as, Paris’s oscillation on this issue cast it as an unreliable ally in the race to balance global power dynamics.
None of this would have been visible had Macron simply taken a more subtle approach to the issue. Had he done so, he would have been able to gradually build credibility instead of erecting a wall of doubt in both the abilities and intentions of his government. Already, the step of cohosting the Conference would have been considered a step toward nominal autonomy on the foreign policy arena, without the need to overextend into ambitious claims of recognition.
When Rhetoric Meets Reality
Short of a political curveball at the conference where Macron ultimately unexpectedly takes a tangible step toward recognition, this conference will likely fall into the familiar holding pattern of pledges, calls for recognition, respect for international law, calls for humanitarian assistance, and other familiar issues that will amount to little or nothing on the ground.
Macron’s misstep is more than a personal or partisan error; it is emblematic of the broader crisis of credibility facing Europe on the world stage. When the gap between rhetoric and action becomes this stark, every subsequent gesture will be received with mounting skepticism. France, and Europe as a whole, cannot rebuild trust or regain influence by continuing to promise what they are unwilling or unable to deliver. In this case, Macron’s public retreat does more than expose his own limitations; it highlights the structural dependencies that prevent Europe from breaking free of old alliances and asserting a truly independent role in international affairs.
Ultimately, unless France—or any other major European power—can demonstrate that it is prepared to bear the cost of its convictions, all talk of strategic autonomy will remain just that: talk. The world is watching not for more promises, but for proof that Europe can chart its own course. Short of a genuine policy shift or an unexpected act of leadership, the upcoming conference is destined to reinforce the very doubts it was meant to dispel, leaving France and Europe further adrift in a world that increasingly demands action over aspiration.