Europe faces a new age of shrunken French influence

In 1965 an imperious president of France all but derailed the European project by means of an “empty chair”, vetoing any schemes cooked up in Brussels by simply refusing to send French officials to any meetings there. In 2024 a no-less-imperious French president is hoping to go one better: to fill France’s chair in European Union meetings with ministers who will be either powerless to act or decry the EU as a globalist plot. Back then Charles de Gaulle relented after six months, once he was satisfied that lesser Europeans would not be able to impose their will on the French. Alas, the forthcoming crisis induced by Emmanuel Macron’s decision to call (and then get trounced in) snap elections is likely to last far longer. Talk of Frexit, now or later, is overdone. But the effect of the sitting president losing his authority in Europe—call it “Macroff”—is still a blow for the union. France, for years a driving force in the EU, is likely to become a handbrake.