France and Greece hedge their bets with a new defence pact
The new alliance reflects their shared fears of Turkey
KYRIAKOS MITSOTAKIS, Greece’s prime minister, cast it as a love story. “History…wants us together,” he told Emmanuel Macron, France’s president, in Paris on September 28th. “So does geography.” He serenaded Mr Macron with tales of Ionian seafarers landing in Marseilles and the French Philhellenes who backed Greece’s war of independence. Mr Macron said that Greece was “a civilisation that has inspired us and enabled us to be ourselves”. Then the two leaders consummated their courtship with what they are calling a “strategic” defence pact.
This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline “Paris Philhellenic”
From the October 2nd 2021 edition
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