The gesture is welcomed by Europeans, French in mind: the first decision of Democrat Joe Biden as President of the United States, upon his inauguration on Wednesday, January 20, will consist in bringing his country back to the Paris climate agreement. , from which Donald Trump had withdrawn in 2017. Quite a symbol, all the more significant as it is to the old French-speaking driver John Kerry - moreover cousin of the ecologist Brice Lalonde!
- that is entrusted to the file.
Ignored, scorned or scorned by the Republican President who threatened to withdraw American NATO soldiers from the Old Continent, Europe - apart from a few autocrats such as the Hungarian Viktor Orban - is pleased to find a peaceful and rational relationship with the great ally American.
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“But make no mistake about it, Gérard Araud, ex-French ambassador to Washington from the start, we are not going back to the Obama era… where Europe was already far from being a priority.
The big business of the United States, it is China, the rival which could well supplant them as planetary leader and with which they maintain a climate of quasi-cold war.
On this ground, warns the diplomat, "Europe will have to ensure a balanced policy, not to be embarked in an anti-Chinese crusade".
The return of the Obama-era elders
Obama era?
"We find in any case the heads, those who worked in his team four years ago return to that of Biden, all promoted," laughs a high-ranking French diplomat.
The French-speaking Antony Blinken, former number two of the State Department
(Editor's note: Ministry of Foreign Affairs),
becomes the holder, the former number three becomes number two and so on ... We know them, we see what makes them inspires and on what basis they want to work.
In short, diplomats are reassured, at least the tone will be polite.
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Surprisingly, however, except for a phone call between Emmanuel Macron and Joe Biden after his election, there has still been no direct contact.
“The Biden team surrounded itself with a luxury of precautions, cutting all links with foreign emissaries, to avoid a
Russian investigation-
type procedure
(Editor's note: which had targeted the Trumpists for alleged Russian interference in the 2016 campaign
) », Recently confided to us a diplomat in Washington.
Trade, Gafa, Iran ... so many sensitive subjects
On substantive issues, can the agreement last longer than the hugs of a day of investiture?
On the summit for democracy that the Democrat wants to bring together, the Elysee says it is interested, while asking to know more about the content, still vague.
Other issues watched by the Macron team, the United States - European Union trade war, the evolution of digital platforms, the regulation of matters relating to artificial intelligence ... Barack Obama was considered to be close to the Gafam (Google , Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft) that France dreams of taxing and better supervising: will it be the same for its ex-right-hand man Biden?
It is too early to say it, estimates one at the Elysee.
More sensitive, the Iranian nuclear agreement, torn off in 2015 by the Americans with the French, Germans, British, Russians and Chinese, and also denounced by Trump.
"Biden wants to come back to the agreement, it's a good signal, but it won't be so simple because, in the meantime, Iran has moved closer to the nuclear bomb and has become more dangerous", emphasizes Gérard Araud .
Here again, it is in collaboration with the Europeans that we will have to "find a way" to stop the mullahs' regime in its atomic race.
Still, the defeat of Donald Trump entails a paradoxical risk, noted by the former Minister of Foreign Affairs Hubert Védrine: "The four years of Trump have indeed enabled Emmanuel Macron to advance some ideas, to accustom our partners to notion of European sovereignty, he recalled in Le Parisien - Today in France.
If Europeans believe that the
nightmare is over
, this effort risks weakening ”.
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