He likes to search for agreement and compromise

Macron seeks to be a peace broker, but his initiatives raise controversy

Macron is keen to maintain contact with Putin in the hope of reaching a settlement to the Ukraine war.

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French President Emmanuel Macron asserts that "peace is possible" in Ukraine, as in a number of other conflicts, trying to create the image of a president - a mediator who has achieved many "diplomatic successes", although his ambitions remain in reality, and to a large extent controversial.

At the Paris Peace Forum last Friday, the French president reiterated his foreign policy line, after his speech at the “Cry for Peace” summit in Rome last October, and his speech against “the division of the world” at the United Nations last September.

"He is looking for an intermediary role," the former ambassador of France to China, Britain and Russia, Sylvie Berman, told AFP.

She added that this "liked" and that he "likes to search for an agreement, for a compromise."

This is especially so that since the legislative elections that took place in June, which led to a relative majority for the presidential camp, the margin of maneuver he has on the national scene has diminished.

During the Paris Forum, Macron tried to revive the faltering dialogue between President Nicolas Maduro's camp and his opponents, to get Venezuela out of its political impasse, but no breakthrough has now been announced.

This last file is on a long list of issues, as the president's surroundings confirm.

Dialogue with Putin

One day in October, the Elysee Palace organized a meeting for journalists devoted to the conflict in Ukraine.

But at the beginning, an advisor to the president elaborated on the "successes" that the French president "achieves, one after the other", and "deserve" to highlight his "role".

From the tension between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda, to the agreement between Bulgaria and North Macedonia, including his “intervention” to facilitate an Israeli-Lebanese understanding, the message was clear: Emmanuel Macron is achieving peace results.

But these "successes" are limited, as appears from the sharp setback in Rwandan-Congolese relations, or the limited initiatives of Paris in the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan, despite the mediation attempts that Baku and Moscow do not want, according to a diplomat from the region.

It is clear that the French president has focused his efforts on the war that Russia has been waging in Ukraine since the beginning of the year.

He "takes over" to continue talking with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, with whom other Western leaders, led by US President Joe Biden, cut all bridges.

But he expresses another opinion, including in the European camp, by stressing the need to eventually reach a "peace" to be negotiated "at the table" with "the enemy of today", "when the Ukrainian people and their leaders decide to do so, and on the terms they decide."

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These calls for negotiation deeply upset Ukraine.

Sylvie Berman said Emmanuel Macron was "right not to give up".

"It is important to keep a channel, and those who say (we should not talk to Putin) do not make sense," she added, noting the usefulness of such dialogue on some issues, such as the access of international inspectors to nuclear power plants threatened in the conflict, or the export of grain.

But the former diplomat considers the French president's task "too complicated", especially since his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is "not his best friend", and he appears to be in a better position to play an effective mediation role.

Michel Duclos, a special advisor at the Montaigne Research Institute (liberal), expresses a harsher opinion of Macron, who "believed for a very long time that his personal relationships, and his ability to persuade, would allow him to push Putin to change his position."

"This is an honorable matter, but it is clearly a mistake in the analysis," said this former ambassador, explaining that this makes France vulnerable to a decline in the confidence of a number of European allies, such as Poland and the Baltic states, as well as Washington, in it.

According to Michel Duclos, the President of the French Republic has "more credibility" when he calls, as he did on the rostrum of the United Nations General Assembly, for a "new decade between North and South" and urges world leaders to reject Russian "imperialism".

During the Paris Forum, Macron attempted to revive the faltering dialogue between President Nicolas Maduro's camp and his opponents, to get Venezuela out of its political impasse, but no breakthrough has now been announced.

Macron “takes charge” of continuing to speak with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, with whom other Western leaders, led by US President Joe Biden, cut all bridges.

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