In 2007, it was there, in the prestigious Munich Security Conference, long considered the Davos of defence, that Vladimir Putin gave a very brutal speech against the West and the United States, to the amazement of European political leaders who listened to him.
The Russian president had denounced this "
unipolar world
", made up of "
a single master, a single sovereign
".
To discover
Follow information on the war in Ukraine with the Figaro application
Already the first guns of the war in Georgia were pointing in 2008, of the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and then of the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. But only the countries of Central and Eastern Europe heard the era their echo.
This year, the Bayerischer Hof hotel has been repainted in the colors of Ukraine, with its giant blue and yellow posters reminding everyone that Ukraine and Westerners share the same boat.
Vladimir Putin's war drove Russian officials out of the Bavarian capital.
Revenge of Russia
A year after the start of the war, at the time of the first assessment, Emmanuel Macron confirmed the slight change in his Russian policy.
He, whose formulas - not to "
humiliate
" Russia, to give it "
security guarantees
" - had shocked the Ukrainians and their Eastern European allies, delivered an unambiguous speech on the objectives of the France.
"
Russia cannot and should not win this war...Russian aggression must fail
," he said.
After having, at the beginning of the war, hoped that it would end quickly, the French president,
"who is adapting to the circumstances
" according to one of his relatives, recognized that it was necessary to prepare for a conflict "
long term
".
Russia, "
which did not digest the fall of the Soviet empire
" and is taking its revenge by pursuing the "crazy dream" of reconstituting it, is far, very far from the first step of the gigantic staircase which leads to the peace.
“
It will have to last… We are ready to intensify our efforts
,” he said.
Read alsoWesterns are sounding the alert on their ammunition stocks
But on the merits, Emmanuel Macron, even if he paid attention to the choice of formulas, did not break with his convictions towards Vladimir Putin's Russia.
For the past few days, the Elysée has been putting forward words that until then had not been spoken in Paris, such as the need for a "
victory
" for Ukraine and a "
defeat
" for Russia.
This was not the case with Emmanuel Macron in Munich.
With the French president as with Tolstoy, war and peace always go hand in hand.
"
We must prepare now the conditions and terms of peace,
" he said.
He has been reminding us of this since the beginning of the war: “
None of us will change the geography, Russia will always be on the European continent
".
There cannot therefore be "
a lasting and complete peace on the continent without embracing the Russian question
".
Emmanuel Macron recognizes this, he who has not spoken to Vladimir Putin since September 11: "
The time today is not for dialogue
."
But his goal, in reiterating military and political support for Kiev, is to "
force Russia to come to the negotiating table on Ukraine's terms
."
We feel that he is impatient to work for this peace which for the moment neither the aggressor, Vladimir Putin, nor the attacked, Volodymyr Zelensky, want, but which he knows will come “in due time
”
.
One of the means of preparing for it upstream is to work to regain the confidence of the “
global South
” which does not condemn the aggression against Russia.
He who has always said he wants to make France a "power
of mediation
insists on the fact that Europe "
must take its place at the negotiating table
".
And to those in Eastern Europe who believe that peace, or in any case a lasting peace, cannot see the light of day as long as Vladimir Putin is in power, he replies: "I don't believe for a second
in “regime changes
”.
Strategic autonomy
On an air of Schubert played on the piano in the enclosure of the conference, Volodymyr Zelensky saw, in videoconference from kyiv, parade the photos and the significant videos of the first year of war.
The destruction imposed on the cities of his country, the wounds inflicted on the civilian populations.
The Ukrainian president did not speak of peace and negotiations but on the contrary of the imperative to
"defeat Russia"
militarily.
"
There is no alternative,
" he said to applause.
He also urged Ukraine's allies to deliver more weapons more quickly.
"
Vladimir Putin tries to buy time.
We need to go fast.
We need speed in the delivery of weapons, in decisions aimed at limiting Russian potential.
There is no other solution than speed, because it is on it that life depends
” he affirmed.
He would like to go faster and offer his country a victory in 2023. He is probably worried about the resilience of Westerners and the ability of the Ukrainian army to face the waves of Russian soldiers promised by the mobilization announced by the Kremlin.
In 2022, he came to Munich to seek “
Western determination”
to counter the Russian military threat.
“
At the time I only got it after the Russians invaded us
".
Today he asks for tanks, fighter jets, ammunition and missiles before it is too late.
Read alsoWar in Ukraine: Valeri Guerassimov, Vladimir Putin's trump card
But is the sense of urgency the same among Ukraine's Western allies?
No, because he is constrained both by the fear of Russian reactions to a stronger commitment from Europe and the United States, by the fear of the chaos that could follow a departure of Vladimir Putin and by the limits of the defenses and European armies.
Emmanuel Macron, who has made strategic autonomy one of his foreign policy priorities, has launched a new appeal to his allies to convince them that European defense does not work on NATO's flowerbeds.
“We must reinvest in our defence, accelerate our ability to produce on European soil.
"
Rearmament
" must be "
mental
" but also "
material"
.
Will France and Europe manage to catch up?