What lies behind France’s fatal fascination with Russia?

Voltaire was so enamored of the emerging Russian Empire that he wrote fervent letters to Catherine the Great. In the 1760s and 1770s the French Enlightenment thinker and the Russian empress exchanged 197 handwritten letters, all in French, the language preferred by the Russian nobility. Voltaire praised Catherine as an “enlightened despot”, and told her: “If I were younger, I would become a Russian.” In 1773 he received another silk-stocking philosopher, Denis Diderot, at the court of Saint Petersburg. Thus Russia took its place in the French imagination as a like-minded paradise of arts and letters, the triumph of civilization over anarchy.

If Russia’s war on Ukraine exposed Germany’s industrial dependence on Moscow, it exposed a different kind of dependence in France: a fatal fascination with Russia. On the far left, it is the remnants of the Bolshevik Revolution, anti-Americanism, and communism. During the Cold War, the French Communist Party looked down upon Moscow, and only removed the hammer and sickle from its membership cards in 2013. On the far right, it stems from patriotic nationalism and admiration of authoritarian leadership. Marine Le Pen’s campaigns have been partly financed by a Russian bank.

Russia’s hold on the French imagination is not limited to the extreme. It carries over well into the wooden-floored salon of the Paris establishment. As a young man, Jacques Chirac, a former Gaullist president who sought a multipolar world to balance American hegemony, translated Pushkin’s “Eugene Onegin” into French. Chirac was awarded Russia’s highest honour, and in return was awarded the Légion d’honneur by Vladimir Putin. François Fillon, a prime minister from the centre-right, was a regular guest of Mr Putin. The day after the tanks arrived, Mr Fillon gave up board positions at two Russian firms, apparently not seeing the 2014 invasion of Crimea as a hindrance to accepting the position.

Those who turned to this world comforted themselves with the thought that the tropism of France was neither dangerous nor repulsive, but the fruit of a special cultural understanding. For nearly a decade from 2008, Alexander Orlov, Russia’s ambassador to Paris, entertained the Parisian elite and oversaw the construction of a glittering gold-tipped Russian Orthodox cathedral on the left bank of the Seine. When Mr. Orlov published his memoirs in 2020, the foreword was written by Hélène Carré d’Ancousse, “perpetual secretary” of the Académie Française. His book, he suggested, would help readers understand the “disorganization” of Soviet Russians. the downfall of his country.

Of course, in the arena of France’s riotous political debate, as within the quiet corridors of the diplomatic service, rival geopolitical tensions compete. Reflex sympathy for Russia is neither universal nor irresistible. François Hollande, a socialist former president, canceled a French contract to deliver two Mistral-class battleships to Russia after the annexation of Crimea. Bernard-Henri Lévy, a French philosopher for whom no battlefield goes unseen and no white shirt goes un-ironed, has for years urged France to do more to counter Russian aggression in Ukraine. try; To this end his latest film, “Slava Ukraini”, is releasing on 22 February.

Even France’s post-war narrative of strategic parity between the US and the Soviet Union has its share of mythology. As one of Emmanuel Macron’s parliamentarians, Benjamin Haddad, says, “the geopolitical attraction to Russia has partly been rebuilt with consternation”: in a crisis, Charles de Gaulle stood by his transatlantic allies. For French people, they seem clear: three-fifths of polls show they have a positive opinion of Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky, and less than one in ten of Mr Putin.

This is the backdrop against which France’s diplomacy under Mr. Macron must be set. It was Versailles, where Peter the Great had visited, that the newly elected Mr Macron invited Mr Putin to great fanfare for the first time, praising “a Russia that wants to open up to Europe”. More than any other European leader, the centrist French president thought he could stop Mr Putin from going to war, even as he massed his tanks on Ukraine’s borders and warned US spies giving that the invasion was imminent. Almost alone, Mr. Macron daydreamed about a day when Russia could be ushered into a “new”. European security architecture”, to prevent it from falling into the arms of China. Invasions, massacres, bombings of civilians and children: all the unspeakable horrors of Mr. Putin’s war have, in time, forced a kind of mourning on the French leader. Gave in. His charm offensive failed, brutally.

shadow of versailles

This is an important moment for Mr. Macron. He continues to hear voices both advising traditional caution and restraint and urging him to take more leadership on Ukraine and dispel illusions about a future Russia. His quest to embrace the complexity of war and peace will undoubtedly create further ambiguity. The French president has not spoken to Mr Putin since September 2022 but says the lines are still open. Only two months ago he was muttering about post-war “security guarantees” for Russia. Mr Macron wants both to support Ukraine in the war, and to be a mediating voice at the negotiating table when it comes to peace.

Yet he has rarely sounded outspoken in recent weeks, declaring that France is “all the way to victory” behind Ukraine and delivering more and more heavy weapons – though so far in contrast to many of its allies. Battle tanks are not promised. “I think they have. Changed, and this time really,” none other than Mr. Zelensky told Le Figaro newspaper on February 8, the day he flew from London to Paris for the dinner. Was. The next morning when the two leaders boarded the French President’s plane to Brussels, who else but the white-shirted Mr. Levy would be at the airport for talks. Mr. Macron’s ears are open. But ultimately in diplomacy, as in all matters, he is his own counsellor. It may be too much to expect the French president to completely give up his share of the country’s Russian charm; But he is moving in the right direction.

Read more from Charlemagne, our columnist on European politics:

Europe should not respond to US subsidies with its own mistakes (February 9)

Finally, populism in Europe is losing its mojo (February 2)

Experience of past crises shows Europe must shrug off any complacency (26 January)

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