Most of the lights had gone out in the Elysee Palace when French President Emmanuel Macron held a second phone call with President Vladimir Putin at 11pm on Sunday.

In the morning he had already exchanged more than an hour and a half with the Kremlin boss to come to the conclusion that there were "different interpretations of the situation".

At 9:45 p.m., the Frenchman spoke again with American President Joe Biden.

Michael Wiegel

Political correspondent based in Paris.

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At 1:48 a.m., the Elysée Palace sent out a communiqué that diplomacy should be given a new chance.

Both Putin and Biden had accepted "the principle of such a summit meeting," it said.

Such a summit meeting?

Macron does not mean a repetition of the Geneva summit talks, which Europe was informed about before and after.

A summit meeting of the two presidents is planned, which will then be expanded to include "all parties concerned".

The topic should be “security and strategic stability in Europe”.

Macron knows how risky the procedure is.

But he is convinced that "not all avenues of diplomacy have been exhausted".

As long as there is talk, the guns are silent, he believes.

The summit will not take place "should Russia invade Ukraine," is the last warning sentence in the communiqué.

Blinken and Lavrov are meeting this Tuesday

A face-to-face meeting is planned, but no agreement has yet been reached on the location, according to the Elysée.

Helsinki is under discussion, or Paris.

The location is secondary, the most important thing is that the meeting takes place.

The date has not yet been set either.

They don't want to be misled by the reports from the Kremlin that a summit meeting is too early.

A clarification is expected in Paris from the planned meeting between American Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov this Tuesday.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian will also speak to Lavrov "in the next few days".

It is unclear in what capacity President Macron is driving crisis diplomacy.

France holds the EU Council Presidency this six-month period.

But the president has no official mandate from EU partners to negotiate “the security and strategic stability of Europe” on their behalf.

Most recently, Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas sneered at the Frenchman in the weekend edition of the Financial Times: “I feel there is a strong desire to be the hero who solves this case.

But I don't think it can be solved that way.

There seems to me to be a certain naivety towards Russia."

She also said that to Emmanuel Macron and warned him about Putin.

skepticism in the EU

Their skepticism is shared by many in the EU.

Macron is aware of the negative attitude.

She spurs him on to open up room for negotiation for the EU.

This distinguishes him from Chancellor Olaf Scholz, with whom he spoke on the phone at 5:30 p.m. on Sunday.

Macron interprets Angela Merkel's famous beer tent statement that Europe must take its fate into its own hands as a negotiating mandate.

In the Elysée, one never tires of describing the initial situation.

In 1997, NATO and Russia regulated their relations in the Founding Act.

In 2008, NATO committed itself to an open-door policy, which opened up the prospect of membership for Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova.