International Relations

Subterms

    More stories

    • 113 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      Colombia Election: Angry, Mobilized and Voting for Gustavo Petro

      by

      A large and loud youth electorate hungry to transform one of Latin America’s most unequal societies could propel Gustavo Petro, a former rebel, to the presidency.May 26, 2022FUSAGASUGÁ, Colombia — The man onstage surrounded by a screaming, sweating, fawning crowd seemed like an odd choice for a youth icon. Gustavo Petro is gray-haired, 62, and, in his speeches, he’s more roaring preacher than conversational TikTok star.But after an improbable rise from clandestine rebel to Bogotá mayor and bullish face of the Colombian opposition, Mr. Petro could soon become the country’s first leftist president, a watershed moment for one of the most politically conservative societies in Latin America.And his ascent has, in no small part, been propelled by the biggest, loudest and possibly angriest youth electorate in Colombia’s history, demanding the transformation of a country long cleaved by deep social and racial inequality.There are now nearly nine million Colombian voters 28 or younger, the most in history, and a quarter of the electorate. They are restive, raised on promises of higher education and good jobs, disillusioned by current prospects, more digitally connected and arguably more empowered than any previous generation.“Petro is change,” said Camila Riveros, 30, wrapped in a Colombian flag at a campaign event this month outside Bogotá, the capital. “People are tired of eating dirt.”Gustavo Petro this month in Santa Marta. He has held a steady lead in most polls, though he may not have enough support to avoid a runoff. As Colombians prepare to vote on Sunday, Mr. Petro has promised to overhaul the country’s capitalist economic model and vastly expand social programs, pledging to introduce guaranteed work with a basic income, shift the country to a publicly controlled health system and increase access to higher education, in part by raising taxes on the rich.Mr. Petro has been ahead in the polls for months — though surveys suggest he will face a runoff in June — and his popularity reflects both leftist gains across Latin America and an anti-incumbent fervor that has intensified as the pandemic has battered the region.“We have a decision to make,” Mr. Petro said at another campaign event this month in the Caribbean city of Cartagena. “We maintain things the way they are, or we scream: Freedom!”But critics say Mr. Petro is ill-suited for office, arguing that his policies, which include a plan to halt all new oil exploration in a country where fuel is a critical export, would ruin the economy.He has also taken direct swings at the country’s major institutions — most notably the armed forces — escalating tensions with military leaders and leading to concerns about the stability of Colombia’s longstanding but vulnerable democracy.Mr. Petro’s main opponent, Federico Gutiérrez, 47, a former mayor of Medellín, the country’s second largest city, and the candidate of the conservative establishment, proposes a more modest path forward.“Of course we need to change many things,” he said in an interview, citing a plan that would ramp up fracking for oil, steer more money to local governments and create a special unit to fight urban crime. “But changes can never mean a leap into the void without a parachute.”A third candidate, Rodolfo Hernández, 77, a former mayor with a populist, anti-corruption platform has been climbing in the polls.Mr. Petro’s main opponent, Federico Gutiérrez, is a former mayor of Medellín, the country’s second largest city, and the candidate of the conservative establishment.The election comes at a difficult moment for the country. Polls show widespread dissatisfaction with the government of the current president, Iván Duque, who is backed by the same political coalition as Mr. Gutiérrez, and frustration over chronic poverty, a widening income gap and insecurity, all of which have worsened during the pandemic.Among those hurt the most by these problems are younger Colombians, who are likely to play a big role in determining whether the country takes a major lurch to the left.Young people led anti-government protests that filled the streets of Colombia last year, dominating the national conversation for weeks. At least 46 people died — many of them young, unarmed protesters and many at the hands of the police — in what became referred to as the “national strike.”Some analysts expect young people to vote in record numbers, energized not just by Mr. Petro, but by his running mate, Francia Márquez, 40, an environmental activist with a gender, race and class-conscious focus who would be the country’s first Black vice president.“The TikTok generation that is very connected to Francia, that is very connected to Petro, is going to be decisive,” said Fernando Posada, 30, a political analyst.Some analysts expect young people to vote in record numbers, energized not just by Mr. Petro but by his running mate, Francia Márquez, an environmental activist.Today’s younger generation is the most educated in Colombian history, but is also grappling with 10 percent annual inflation, a 20 percent youth unemployment rate and a 40 percent poverty rate. Many — both supporters and critics of Mr. Petro — say they feel betrayed by decades of leaders who have promised opportunity but delivered little.In a May poll by the firm Invamer, more than 53 percent of voters ages 18 to 24 and about 45 percent of voters ages 25 to 34 said they were planning to vote for Mr. Petro. In both age categories, less than half those numbers said they would vote for Mr. Gutierrez or Mr. Hernández.Natalia Arévalo, 30, a single mother of three, marched for days during protests last year, with her daughter, Lizeth, 10, wearing a placard around her neck that read: “What awaits us children?”“You have to choose between paying your debts and feeding your kids,” said Ms. Arévalo, who supports Mr. Petro.“You can’t eat eggs, you can’t eat meat, you can’t eat anything,” she added. “We have to give a 180-degree turn to all that we’ve had for the last 20 years.”José Fernando Mazo, a law student, waving in the crowd at a rally for Mr. Petro in Cartagena on May 14.To be sure, many young voters are skeptical of Mr. Petro’s ability to deliver on his promises.In Fusagasugá, Nina Cruz, 27, a cafe worker, said Mr. Petro would fail Colombia’s struggling families, and she was particularly repulsed by his past as a member of a leftist rebel group.The country has a long history of violent militias that claim to help the indigent — and end up terrorizing them.“What he is saying is: ‘I’m going to help the poor,’” she said. “That’s a total lie.”Mr. Petro, an economist, grew up outside Bogotá. As a teenager, he joined the M-19, a leftist urban militia that sought to seize power and claimed to promote social justice.The group was never as large or as violent as the country’s main guerrilla force, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. But in 1985, the M-19 occupied a national judicial building, sparking a battle with the police and the military that left 94 people dead.Mr. Petro, who did not participate in the takeover, ended up in prison for his involvement with the group.He eventually demobilized and ran for a senate seat, emerging as the combative face of the left, pushing open conversations about corruption and wrongdoing.Some critics have warned that Mr. Petro’s energy proposals would bankrupt the country. Oil represents 40 percent of Colombia’s exports and Juan Carlos Echeverry, a former finance minister, has said that halting oil exploration “would be economic suicide.’’Ballistic shields on stage during Mr. Petro’s appearance in Cartagena. He has been the recent target of death threats. Mr. Petro also has a reputation for an authoritarian streak. As mayor of Bogotá, he circumvented the City Council and often failed to listen to advisers, said Daniel Garcia-Peña, who worked with Mr. Petro for a decade before quitting in 2012. In his resignation letter Mr. Garcia-Peña called Mr. Petro “a despot.”The election comes as polls show growing distrust in the country’s democratic institutions, including the country’s national registrar, an election body that bungled the initial vote count in a congressional election in March.The error, which the registrar called procedural, has led to concerns that losing candidates will declare fraud, setting off a legitimacy crisis.The country is also being roiled by rising violence, threatening to undermine the democratic process. The Mission for Electoral Observation, a local group, called this pre-election period the most violent in 12 years.Candidates pushing change have been murdered on the campaign trail before.Both Mr. Petro and Ms. Márquez have received death threats, and at his campaign event in Cartagena, he took the stage flanked by men holding bulletproof shields.Young supporters of Mr. Petro at a rally in Cartagena on May 14. A recent poll found that Mr. Petro was the leading candidate among voters 18 to 34.Some voters held signs that read “Black children’s lives matter,” and “if it’s not Petro, we’re screwed.”There was excitement — but also trepidation.“What we want are opportunities for everyone,” said Lauren Jiménez, 21, a university student.But “if Petro can’t follow through, I know we will see the same thing that happened with the Duque government: a social explosion,” she warned. “Because we’re tired of staying quiet.”Sofía Villamil More

    • 150 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      As Marine Le Pen Moves Closer to French Presidency, Putin Ties Persist

      by

      As elections approach Sunday, the far-right candidate is linked to the Russian president by a web of financial ties and a history of support that has hardly dimmed despite the war in Ukraine.PARIS — When Europe’s far-right leaders gathered in Madrid in January, they had no problem finding unity on the issues they hold dear, whether cracking down on immigrants or upholding “European Christian ideals.” But as Russian troops massed on the Ukrainian border, they were divided on one issue: the threat posed by President Vladimir V. Putin.Marine Le Pen, the extreme-right challenger for the French presidency, objected to a paragraph in the final statement calling for European solidarity to confront “Russian military actions on the eastern border of Europe.” Even in a gathering of illiberal nationalists, she was an outlier in her fealty to Mr. Putin.Now, on her campaign website, the leaders’ statement appears with that paragraph cut in an unacknowledged change to the text. This little subterfuge is consistent with an embrace of Mr. Putin so complete that even his ravaging of Ukraine has hardly diminished it.Over the past decade, Ms. Le Pen’s party, the National Rally, formerly the National Front, has borrowed millions from a Russian bank, and Ms. Le Pen has supported Mr. Putin’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, as well as his incendiary meddling that year in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, where just this week Russia redoubled its offensive.Her support for Mr. Putin is one thing in a time of peace and another in a time of war. Russia, a nuclear power, has invaded a European state, and Ms. Le Pen is closer than ever to her cherished goal of becoming president of France, having narrowed the gap with President Emmanuel Macron before the decisive round of the election on Sunday.Supporters of Ms. Le Pen at a campaign rally in Stiring-Wendel, France, on April 1. She has come closer to Mr. Macron in polls as a decisive election round nears.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesWith polls showing Ms. Le Pen gaining about 44.5 percent of the vote to Mr. Macron’s 55.5 percent, she is within range of the shocks that produced Brexit and Donald J. Trump’s victory in 2016. As in Britain and the United States, alienation and economic hardship have fed a French readiness to gamble on nationalist dreams.If Ms. Le Pen wins, which is not likely but possible, her victory will almost certainly fracture the allied unity engineered by President Biden in an attempt to defeat Mr. Putin. It would hand Mr. Putin by far his most important ally in Europe, one he could leverage in his aims to divide Europe from the United States and fracture Europe’s decades-old project of unity.France, a core member of the European Union and NATO, is suddenly the possible soft underbelly of the West.Julien Nocetti, a Russia expert at the French Institute of International Relations, said there was “a complete ideological alignment between Putin and Le Pen” — one that would be deeply worrying to France’s American and European allies.The Ukraine war has caused Ms. Le Pen to pivot a little by saying Mr. Putin crossed “a red line” with the invasion, but she still says her foreign-policy priority is a rapprochement with Russia once the fighting stops.Bodies being loaded onto a truck in Bucha, Ukraine, where evidence of Russian atrocities mounted. Ms. Le Pen said that Mr. Putin crossed “a red line” with the invasion but also that she will seek a rapprochement with Russia.Daniel Berehulak for The New York TimesSince Ms. Le Pen, 53, took over the leadership of her party in 2011, she has only deepened its Putin predilection, making four trips to Moscow and one to Crimea. She would support sanctions against Russia, she says, but not cutting off imports of Russian oil and gas, which she has equated with economic death for France.“We have to think of our people,” she said in a recent TV interview, a position consistent with the strong focus on pocketbook issues that has propelled her campaign. The majority of French people are more focused on getting to the end of the month than getting Russia out of Ukraine.Certainly, Ms. Le Pen vaunted her connection with Mr. Putin until he went to war on Feb. 24. She included a photo of herself shaking hands with him in her election brochure as evidence of her “international stature.” This handout disappeared abruptly from view after the Russian invasion.The photo was taken at the Kremlin on March 24, 2017. That was less than five weeks before the first round of the last presidential election, in which Mr. Macron defeated Ms. Le Pen by 66.1 percent to 33.9 percent. The National Rally leader said then that she would immediately review lifting “unjust” sanctions against Russia if elected.As for Mr. Putin, he said with a knowing smirk that Russia did “not want to influence events in any way.”Shopping at a supermarket in Livry-Gargan, Paris, in December. Most French voters are more concerned about the economy than the Ukraine war.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesJean-Maurice Ripert, the French ambassador in Moscow from 2013 to 2017, said in an interview that a fellow European ambassador, a close friend, had asked the Russian leader after the French election why he had backed Ms. Le Pen.“Because I had been told she was going to win,” Mr. Putin said.Certainly that is what he wanted. Ms. Le Pen, committed to “equidistance” between great powers and hostile to “America’s protectorate on European soil,” sees in Mr. Putin the defender of the nation-state, family and Christianity against border-eroding multilateralism and irreligious cultural decay.“It’s all about sovereignty,” said Marlène Laruelle, the French director of the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian studies at George Washington University. “The sovereign state against international organizations; the sovereign traditional family against L.G.B.T.Q. rights.”Then there is the money. Unable to get a loan from French banks, Ms. Le Pen and several of her top aides scrambled for cash in Russia, accepting a 9.4 million euro loan, then $12.2 million, at a 6 percent interest rate, from the First Czech-Russian Bank in September 2014. It was supposed to be repaid by 2019.A branch of the First Czech-Russian Bank in Moscow, before it collapsed in 2016. Ms. Le Pen received millions in loans from the bank.Dmitry Serebryakov/TASS/Alamy Live NewsWallerand de Saint-Just, who was long the National Rally’s treasurer before leaving the position last year, negotiated the deal in Moscow. In a written answer to a question as to why French banks had refused any loan to the National Rally, he said “My experience with the six big French banking groups is that they obey orders from the political executive.”But given the lack of transparency and accountability in Russia’s financial sector — and Mr. Putin’s sway over it in his pay-to-play system — the sum has long raised hard questions of just how beholden Ms. Le Pen actually is to the Russian president, and whether some of her outspoken backing for him has been a consequence.I asked Ms. Le Pen this month at a news conference whether the outstanding loan did not create at least the impression of dependence on Russia, a liability for any future president?“Absolutely not,” she said. “I am totally independent of any link to any power.”In her current campaign, again unable to get a loan from a French bank, Ms. Le Pen turned to Hungary, where Viktor Orban, the anti-immigrant Hungarian prime minister, has been in power for 12 years. A Hungarian bank has now lent the National Rally another $11.4 million, so if she were to win she would be indebted to both Mr. Putin and Mr. Orban.Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orban, center, attending a meeting of far-right and conservative leaders in Madrid, in January.Oscar Del Pozo/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesAlready her backing of Mr. Putin has been borderline fawning. Ms. Le Pen visited Moscow and Crimea in June 2013; Moscow in April 2014; and Moscow again in May 2015. She was received by the president of the Duma, the lower chamber of Russia’s Parliament, during the first of these visits, and sprinkled her Russian sojourns with pro-Putin remarks.In 2013, she blamed the European Union for a new “Cold War on Russia.” In 2015, also while in Moscow, she criticized France’s pro-American stance and suggested this would change “in 2017 with Marine Le Pen as president.” In 2021, she recommended Russia’s uncertain Sputnik vaccine for the coronavirus, saying “our anti-Russian ideology should not ruin our capacity to vaccinate our fellow citizens.”The 2014 visit came at a particularly delicate moment, given the Crimea annexation. It was one of several demonstrations of support for Mr. Putin from prominent members of Ms. Le Pen’s party who visited Crimea that year, and the Donbas, the Ukrainian region where clashes kindled by Moscow had begun.Among them was Aymeric Chauprade, her former top diplomatic adviser, who went to Crimea to observe the dubious March 2014 referendum that massively backed the Russian annexation. A United Nations General Assembly resolution declared the vote invalid.“It was the West that began changing European borders with Kosovo’s independence in 2008,” Mr. Chauprade, who has since left the National Rally, said in an interview. “There was an openness to accepting invitations from Russia, a good atmosphere.”Russian troops guarded a Ukrainian marine base in Crimea as Mr. Putin moved to annex the peninsula in March 2014. Le Pen has visited Moscow and Crimea and made remarks that were supportive of Russia.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesMediapart, a French investigative news website, was the first to expose the Russian loan to the National Rally in September 2014. In an earlier interview with Mediapart, Mr. Chauprade said visits to the Donbas that year and in 2015 by Jean-Luc Schaffhauser, a former National Rally member of the European Parliament, had been a “quid pro quo” for the loan.What to Know About France’s Presidential ElectionCard 1 of 4Heading to a runoff. More

    • 88 Shares159 Views

      in Elections

      US Braces for Potential French Election Shockwave

      by

      WASHINGTON — U.S. officials are anxiously watching the French presidential election, aware that the outcome of the vote on Sunday could scramble President Biden’s relations with Europe and reveal dangerous fissures in Western democracy.President Emmanuel Macron of France has been a crucial partner as Mr. Biden has rebuilt relations with Europe, promoted democracy and forged a coalition in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But Mr. Macron is in a tight contest with Marine Le Pen, a far-right challenger.Ms. Le Pen is a populist agitator who, in the style of former President Donald J. Trump, scorns European Union “globalists,” criticizes NATO and views President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia as an ally.Her victory could complicate Mr. Biden’s effort to isolate Russia and aid Ukraine. But the very real prospect of a nationalist leading France is also a reminder that the recent period of U.S.-European solidarity on political and security issues like Russia and democracy may be fragile. Poland and Hungary, both NATO members, have taken authoritarian turns. And Germany’s surprisingly strong response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is already drawing domestic criticism.“To have a right-wing government come to power in France would be a political earthquake,” said Charles A. Kupchan, a professor at Georgetown who was the Europe director of the National Security Council during the Obama administration. “It would send a troubling signal about the overall political health of the Western world.”He added: “This is a moment of quite remarkable European unity and resolve. But Le Pen’s election would certainly raise profound questions about the European project.”Mr. Macron was unable to command more than a small plurality of support against several opponents in the first round of voting on April 10. Ms. Le Pen, who finished second, is his opponent in the runoff election on Sunday. Polls show Mr. Macron with a clear lead, but analysts say a Le Pen victory is completely plausible.An immigration hard-liner and longtime leader of France’s populist right, Ms. Le Pen has campaigned mainly on domestic issues, including the rising cost of living. But her foreign policy views have unsettled U.S. officials. Last week, she renewed vows to scale back France’s leadership role in NATO and to pursue “a strategic rapprochement” with Russia after the war with Ukraine has concluded. Ms. Le Pen also expressed concern that sending arms to Ukraine risked drawing other nations into the war.Mr. Macron, right, has been a crucial partner as President Biden has rebuilt relations with Europe.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesIn a debate on Wednesday, Mr. Macron reminded voters that Ms. Le Pen’s party had taken a loan from a Russian bank. “You depend on Mr. Putin,” he told her.Ms. Le Pen insisted she was “an absolutely and totally free woman” and said she sought foreign cash after French banks refused to lend to her. She also sought to deflect charges that she was sympathetic to Russia’s war aims, declaring her “absolute solidarity” with the Ukrainian people.Ms. Le Pen has also pledged to curtail the influence of the European Union, which the Biden administration sees as a vital counterweight to Russia and China.One senior U.S. official noted that France has a recent history of right-wing candidates striking fear into the political establishment before falling short. That was the case five years ago, when Mr. Macron defeated Ms. Le Pen in a runoff.But recent elections in the West have been prone to upsets, and analysts warned against complacency in Washington, especially given the stakes for the United States.One sign of how much the Biden administration values its partnership with Mr. Macron was the minor sense of crisis after France withdrew its ambassador to Washington in September after the disclosure of a new initiative between the United States and Britain to supply Australia with nuclear submarines.Mr. Macron’s government blamed the Biden administration for the loss of a lucrative submarine contract it had with Australia and was especially angry to learn about the arrangement through a leak to the news media. Biden officials expressed profuse support for France in a flurry of meetings and phone calls, and Mr. Biden called the episode clumsy. France was an “extremely, extremely valued” U.S. partner, he said.If Ms. Le Pen were to win, Mr. Biden’s national security team would be forced to reassess that relationship.What to Know About France’s Presidential ElectionCard 1 of 4Heading to a runoff. More

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      Macron to Face Le Pen for President as French Gravitate Toward Extremes

      by

      President Emmanuel Macron and the hard-right leader Marine Le Pen will compete for a second time in a runoff on April 24.PARIS — President Emmanuel Macron will face Marine Le Pen, the French far-right leader, in the runoff of France’s presidential elections.With 92 percent of the ballots cast on Sunday counted, Mr. Macron, a centrist, was leading with about 27.4 percent of the vote to Ms. Le Pen’s 24.3 percent. Ms. Le Pen benefited from a late surge that reflected widespread disaffection over rising prices, security and immigration.With war raging in Ukraine and Western unity likely to be tested as the fighting continues, Ms. Le Pen’s strong performance demonstrated the enduring appeal of nationalist and xenophobic currents in Europe. Extreme parties of the right and left took some 51 percent of the vote, a clear sign of the extent of French anger and frustration.An anti-NATO and more pro-Russia France in the event of an ultimate Le Pen victory would cause deep concern in allied capitals, and could fracture the united trans-Atlantic response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.But Mr. Macron, after a lackluster campaign, will go into the second round as the slight favorite, having fared a little better than the latest opinion polls suggested. Some had shown him leading Ms. Le Pen by just two points.Marine Le Pen speaking after the first-round results were announced on Sunday.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesThe principled French rejection of Ms. Le Pen’s brand of anti-immigrant nationalism has frayed as illiberal politics have spread in both Europe and the United States. She has successfully softened her packaging, if not her fierce conviction that French people must be privileged over foreigners and that the curtain must be drawn on France as a “land of immigration.”Ms. Le Pen’s ties to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia are close, although she has scrambled in recent weeks to play them down. This month, she was quick to congratulate Viktor Orban, Hungary’s nationalist and anti-immigrant leader, on his fourth consecutive victory in parliamentary elections.“I will restore France to order in five years,” Ms. Le Pen declared to cheering supporters, appealing to all French people to join her in what she called “a choice of civilization” in which the “legitimate preponderance of French language and culture” would be guaranteed and full “sovereignty reestablished in all domains.”The choice confronting French people on April 24 was between “division, injustice and disorder” on the one hand, and the “rallying of French people around social justice and protection,” she said.Mr. Macron told flag-waving supporters: “I want a France in a strong Europe that maintains its alliances with the big democracies in order to defend itself, not a France that, outside Europe, would have as its only allies the populist and xenophobic International. That is not us.”He added: “Don’t deceive ourselves, nothing is decided, and the debate we will have in the next 15 days is decisive for our country and for Europe.”A polling station in Pontoise on Sunday.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesLast week, in an interview in the daily Le Parisien newspaper, Mr. Macron called Ms. Le Pen “a racist” of “great brutality.” Ms. Le Pen hit back, saying that the president’s remarks were “outrageous and aggressive.” She called favoring French people over foreigners “the only moral, legal and admissible policy.”The gloves will be off as they confront each other over the future of France, at a time when Britain’s exit from the European Union and the end of Angela Merkel’s long chancellorship in Germany have placed a particular onus on French leadership.Mr. Macron wants to transform Europe into a credible military power with “strategic autonomy.” Ms. Le Pen, whose party has received funding from a Russian and, more recently, a Hungarian bank, has other priorities.The runoff, on April 24, will be a repeat of the last election, in 2017, when Mr. Macron, then a relative newcomer to politics intent on shattering old divisions between left and right, trounced Ms. Le Pen with 66.9 percent of the vote to her 33.1 percent.The final result this time will almost certainly be much closer than five years ago. Polls taken before Sunday’s vote indicated Mr. Macron winning by just 52 percent to 48 percent against Ms. Le Pen in the second round. That could shift in the coming two weeks, when the candidates will debate for the first time in the campaign.Reflecting France’s drift to the right in recent years, no left-of-center candidate qualified for the runoff. The Socialist Party, long a pillar of postwar French politics, collapsed, leaving Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the far-left anti-NATO candidate with his France Unbowed movement, to take third place with about 21 percent.Supporters of Mr. Macron in Paris on Sunday.James Hill for The New York TimesMs. Le Pen, who leads the National Rally, formerly the National Front, was helped by the candidacy of Éric Zemmour, a fiercely xenophobic TV pundit turned politician, who became the go-to politician for anti-immigrant provocation, which made her look more mainstream and innocuous. In the end, Mr. Zemmour’s campaign faded, and he took about 7 percent of the vote.Mr. Zemmour immediately called on his supporters to back Ms. Le Pen in the second round. “Opposing Ms. Le Pen there is a man who allowed 2 million immigrants to enter France,” Mr. Zemmour declared.The threatening scenario for Mr. Macron is that Mr. Zemmour’s vote will go to Ms. Le Pen, and that she will be further bolstered by the wide section of the left that feels betrayed or just viscerally hostile toward the president, as well as by some center-right voters for whom immigration is the core issue.More than half of French people — supporters of Ms. Le Pen, Mr. Zemmour and Mr. Mélenchon — now appear to favor parties that are broadly anti-NATO, anti-American and hostile to the European Union. By contrast, the broad center — Mr. Macron’s La République en Marche party, the Socialist Party, the center right Republicans and the Green Party — took a combined total of about 40 percent.These were numbers that revealed the extent of anxiety in France, and perhaps also the extent of distrust of its democracy. They will be more comforting to Ms. Le Pen than to Mr. Macron, even if Mr. Mélenchon said his supporters should not give “a single vote” to Ms. Le Pen.He declined, however, to endorse Mr. Macron.At Ms. Le Pen’s headquarters, Frederic Sarmiento, an activist, said, “She will benefit from a big transfer of votes,” pointing to supporters of Mr. Zemmour, but also some on the left who, according to polls, will support Ms. Le Pen in the second round.Immigrant families awaiting emergency accommodation outside the Paris city hall last April.Andrea Mantovani for The New York Times“I am very worried, it will be a very close runoff,” said Nicolas Tenzer, an author who teaches political science at Sciences Po university. “Many on the left will abstain rather than vote Macron.”Mr. Macron gained the immediate support for the second round of the defeated Socialist, Communist, Green and center-right candidates, but between them they amounted to no more than 15 percent of the first-round vote. He may also benefit from a late surge in support of the Republic in a country with bitter wartime experience of extreme-right rule.In the end, the election on Sunday came down to Mr. Macron against the extreme right and left of the political spectrum, a sign of his effective dismantlement of the old political order. Now built essentially around a personality — the restless president — French democracy does not appear to have arrived at any sustainable alternative structure.If the two runoff qualifiers are the same as in 2017, they have been changed by circumstances. Where Mr. Macron represented reformist hope in 2017, he is now widely seen as a leader who drifted to the right and a top-down, highly personalized style of government. The sheen is off him.On the place of Islam in France, on immigration controls and on police powers, Mr. Macron has taken a hard line, judging that the election would be won or lost to his right.Addressing his supporters after the vote Sunday, he said he wants a France that “fights resolutely against Islamist separatism” — a term he uses to describe conservative or radical Muslims who reject French values like gender equality — but also a France that allows all believers to practice their faiths.A polling place at the Versailles town hall.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesHis rightward shift had a cost. The center-left, once the core of his support, felt betrayed. To what extent the left will vote for him in the second round will be a main source of concern, as already reflected in Mr. Macron’s abrupt recent catch-up paeans to “fraternity,” “solidarity” and equality of opportunity.Throughout the campaign, Mr. Macron appeared disengaged, taken up with countless telephone calls to Mr. Putin that proved ineffectual.A comfortable lead in polls disappeared in recent weeks as resentment grew over the president’s detachment. He had struggled during the five years of his presidency to overcome an image of aloofness, learning to reach out to more people, only to suffer an apparent relapse in the past several weeks.Still, Mr. Macron steered the country through the long coronavirus crisis, brought unemployment to its lowest level in a decade and lifted economic growth. Doing so, he has convinced many French people that he has what it takes to lead and to represent France with dignity on the world stage.Ms. Le Pen, who would be France’s first woman president, is also seen differently. Now in her third attempt to become president — Jacques Chirac won in 1995 after twice failing — she bowed to reason (and popular opinion) on two significant fronts: dropping her prior vows to take France out of the European Union and the eurozone. Still, many of her proposals — like barring E.U. citizens from some of the same social benefits as French citizens — would infringe fundamental European treaties.The leader of the National Rally, formerly the National Front, toned down her language to look more “presidential.” She smiled a lot, opening up about her personal struggles, and she gave the impression of being closer to the day-to-day concerns of French people, especially with regard to sharply rising gas prices and inflation.But many things did not change. Her program includes a plan to hold a referendum that would lead to a change in the Constitution that would ban any policies that lead to “the installation on national territory of a number of foreigners so large that it would change the composition and identity of the French people.”She also wants to bar Muslim women from wearing head scarves and fine them if they do.Polling booths in Trappes on Sunday. The first round of voting saw the highest abstention rate in decades.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesThe abstention rate Sunday, at between about 26 and 28 percent, was several points above the last election. Not since 2002 has it been so high.This appeared to reflect disillusionment with politics as a change agent, the ripple effect of the war in Ukraine and lost faith in democracy. It was part of the same anger that pushed so many French people toward political extremes.Aurelien Breeden More

    • 113 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Emmanuel Macron cuenta sobre su reunión con Vladimir Putin

      by

      El líder francés relató su cara a cara con Vladimir Putin y desestimó el intercambio de cartas de Washington con Moscú, apostando a que su diplomacia podría dar frutos antes de las elecciones de abril.PARÍS — La semana pasada, en una mesa mucho más pequeña que la ovalada de más de 6 metros de largo en la que el presidente de Francia, Emmanuel Macron, se sentó frente al presidente de Rusia, Vladimir V. Putin, en Moscú, el mandatario francés reunió a algunos periodistas. Ahí dijo que la crisis en Ucrania le estaba ocupando “más de la mitad de mi vida, la mayor parte de mi tiempo” porque el mundo se encuentra “en un momento crítico” de la historia.Esta mesa estaba a unos diez kilómetros de altura, en el avión presidencial que la semana pasada llevó a Macron con prontitud a Moscú; a Kiev, la capital de Ucrania, y a Berlín, donde alertó de un daño “irreversible” si Rusia invadía Ucrania y señaló que era crucial “no aceptar la fatalidad”.Macron está convencido de que la crisis actual —marcada por el revanchismo de Rusia tras su aparente humillación por parte de Occidente— significa que la seguridad colectiva de Europa no se ha podido repensar desde el fin de la Guerra Fría. Parece que, al menos en eso, coincidieron Macron y Putin. El enorme desafío que se le presenta a Macron es determinar cómo podría suplirse, y convencer a los demás, entre ellos a Estados Unidos, sobre sus beneficios.Para el final de la semana pasada, el estancamiento con Rusia, que derivó en maniobras militares cerca de las fronteras de Ucrania, parecía más amenazante que nunca. Sin embargo, a solo ocho semanas de las elecciones presidenciales en Francia, Macron ha tomado la arriesgada apuesta de intentar convencer a Putin de que recurra al diálogo y de que los electores franceses estén más complacidos con su autoridad a nivel global que enfadados por su falta de atención.Si fracasa, no solo se arriesga a perder sus votos y su confianza, sino a dañar su prestigio y el de su país al ser visto en el extranjero como un líder que fue demasiado ambicioso.Consciente de esa percepción, se ha esmerado mucho en coordinar sus esfuerzos con los de otros dirigentes europeos, algunos de ellos escépticos, y con Joe Biden, el presidente de Estados Unidos. El viernes, en una conversación de 75 minutos entre los líderes de Occidente, se activó un frente unido para convencer a Rusia de “distender la crisis y optar por el camino del diálogo”, manifestó la Comisión Europea.Una imagen satelital que muestra el despliegue de viviendas y vehículos militares en Rechitsa, Bielorrusia.Maxar Technologies, vía ReutersCuando cayó el Muro de Berlín, Macron tenía 11 años y Biden, 46, por lo que tal vez es inevitable que haya ciertas divergencias de opinión. Macron no ve ninguna razón para que la estructura de la alianza que prevaleció sobre la Unión Soviética sea eterna.“El asunto no es la OTAN, sino cómo creamos una zona de seguridad”, dijo. “¿Cómo podemos vivir en paz en esta región?”. Macron insinuó que parte de su objetivo en Moscú había sido sugerirle a Putin que abandonara su obsesión por la OTAN —que Ucrania no debe unirse nunca a esta organización— y se concentrara en otro “esquema”. Mencionó que le había dicho al dirigente ruso que “el esquema que usted propone es falso”.Understand Russia’s Relationship With the WestThe tension between the regions is growing and Russian President Vladimir Putin is increasingly willing to take geopolitical risks and assert his demands.Competing for Influence: For months, the threat of confrontation has been growing in a stretch of Europe from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea. Threat of Invasion: As the Russian military builds its presence near Ukraine, Western nations are seeking to avert a worsening of the situation.Energy Politics: Europe is a huge customer of Russia’s fossil fuels. The rising tensions in Ukraine are driving fears of a midwinter cutoff.Migrant Crisis: As people gathered on the eastern border of the European Union, Russia’s uneasy alliance with Belarus triggered additional friction.Militarizing Society: With a “youth army” and initiatives promoting patriotism, the Russian government is pushing the idea that a fight might be coming.Macron advirtió que era necesario presentarse en el Kremlin y enfrentar al hombre que le ha puesto una pistola en la cabeza a Occidente con 130.000 soldados congregados en la frontera con Ucrania. Se ganaba tiempo al abrir otra ruta diplomática, más flexible que el intercambio de cartas entre Rusia y Estados Unidos, que en repetidas ocasiones Macron rechazó por considerarlas inútiles, y programar próximas reuniones. Los dos líderes se reunieron durante más de cinco horas el lunes pasado. Macron dijo que insistió tanto en “las garantías que podía darme sobre la situación en la frontera” que, en algún momento, Putin dijo que estaba siendo “torturado”.Putin, con la misma insistencia, atacó la expansión hacia el este de la OTAN desde 1997 y la agresión que esto implicaba.Marinos ucranianos en la región oriental de Donetsk el miércoles de la semana pasada.Tyler Hicks/The New York TimesCuando le preguntaron acerca de esa mesa tan larga y ridiculizada, Macron dijo: “Bueno, para nada era algo fraternal”.El Kremlin no ha aceptado que Macron haya obtenido alguna concesión, pero dijo que su enfoque tenía “simientes de razón”, a diferencia del intento de diplomacia por parte del Reino Unido, el cual fue tachado por el ministro de Relaciones Exteriores, Serguéi Lavrov, de una conversación entre “sordos y mudos”.No se sabe bien cuál podría ser el nuevo esquema propuesto por Macron para la seguridad de Ucrania y de Europa. Pero, al parecer, de alguna manera ofrecería garantías inquebrantables a Ucrania de su soberanía e independencia en una forma en la que su ingreso a la OTAN quedara como un espejismo; al tiempo que Rusia permanecería satisfecha de que la seguridad de Ucrania no se hubiera reforzado a expensas de Moscú.En la práctica, Macron cree que es posible hacer un truco de prestidigitación que logre al mismo tiempo dos cosas: que los ucranianos permanezcan libres y seguros para mirar hacia Occidente para su futuro y que Putin siga pensando que ambos países forman un “espacio histórico y espiritual”, como lo llamó el líder ruso en una reflexión de 5000 palabras publicada el verano pasado sobre “la unidad histórica de los rusos y los ucranianos”.Se trata de una maniobra híbrida, pero que no es inusual en el presidente francés. A través de los años, Macron se ha dado a conocer como el mandatario de “al mismo tiempo” por sus constantes malabares de diferentes aristas de los asuntos —primero a favor de disminuir la dependencia de Francia en la energía nuclear, ahora a favor de aumentarla— y por su intrincada disección de los problemas que a veces deja a los analistas preguntándose qué es lo que él cree en realidad.Es incuestionable que cree apasionadamente en la Unión Europea y en el desarrollo de Europa como una potencia más independiente. Es un tema en el que nunca ha vacilado, y ahora parece pensar que ha llegado la hora de rendir cuentas/jugársela/arriesgarse por esa convicción.Al menos, con la reunión del canciller de Alemania, Olaf Scholz, con Putin en Moscú esta semana, Macron ha hecho que el papel de Europa cuente en esta crisis, junto con Estados Unidos. Eso es más de lo que se puede decir del Reino Unido.El presidente de Rusia, Vladimir V. Putin, durante una reunión con el presidente de Francia, Emmanuel Macron, en Moscú la semana pasada.Foto de consorcio por Thibault Camus“Europa, a través de sus principales Estados, ha regresado de una etapa de la que parecía haber sido marginada”, dijo Michel Duclos, exembajador de Francia, en un artículo publicado recientemente por el Institut Montaigne.Macron ha tenido que trabajar mucho para mantener alineados a los gobiernos europeos indecisos, sobre todo los que solían vivir bajo el yugo soviético, con sus esfuerzos diplomáticos. Puesto que ahora Francia tiene la presidencia rotatoria del Consejo de la Unión Europea, ha tratado de comunicarse con todos, lo cual es una de las razones por las que Ucrania le está consumiendo su tiempo.Sus horarios tendrán que cambiar de alguna manera las siguientes semanas. Macron todavía no anuncia su candidatura para ser reelegido como presidente, pero es casi seguro que tenga que hacerlo en el transcurso de las próximas semanas. La fecha límite es el 4 de marzo y la primera ronda de votaciones es el 10 de abril.Por ahora, Macron lidera las encuestas, que le dan alrededor del 25 por ciento de los votos, con tres candidatos de derecha que le siguen y los partidos de izquierda divididos muy por detrás. Entre los rivales a su derecha hay un apoyo importante a la imagen de caudillo de Putin y su denuncia de la “decadencia” occidental, por lo que un vínculo con el líder ruso también beneficia políticamente a Macron.Aunque es el favorito para ganar, la probabilidad de una alta tasa de abstención entre los franceses desilusionados con la política y el atractivo poderoso de la extrema derecha hacen que la reelección de Macron no sea segura. Si Putin ignora sus esfuerzos diplomáticos e invade Ucrania, las certezas desaparecerán.Partidarios de Éric Zemmourl, candidato presidencial de extrema derecha, en Lille, FranciaChristophe Petit Tesson/EPA vía ShutterstockÉric Zemmour, candidato de la extrema derecha, dijo el mes pasado que Putin “debe ser respetado”, y agregó que “los argumentos y demandas de Putin son completamente legítimos”. También dijo: “Creo que la OTAN es una organización que debió haber desaparecido en 1990”.Marine Le Pen, la perenne candidata nacionalista y antiinmigrante, dijo el año pasado que “Ucrania pertenece a la esfera de influencia de Rusia”.“Al intentar trastocar esta esfera de influencia”, agregó, “se crean tensiones y miedos, y se llega a la situación que estamos viendo hoy”. Le Pen se negó a firmar una declaración emitida el mes pasado por partidos de extrema derecha reunidos en Madrid porque criticaba a Putin.Sus posturas revelan el abismo que separa la admiración de la extrema derecha francesa por Putin de los esfuerzos de Macron. A la convicción del presidente francés de que Rusia necesita ser parte de una nueva arquitectura de seguridad europea se une la determinación de que Ucrania mantenga su soberanía.Aunque Macron haya provocado malestar por sus críticas a la OTAN, se ha mantenido firme en no ceder a las demandas de Putin.Al preguntarle cuándo se dedicaría a anunciar su candidatura, señaló: “En algún momento tendré que ponerme a pensar en ello. Nada se puede hacer con premura. Tiene que ser en el momento adecuado”.Si Macron no encuentra ese momento ideal, su diplomacia y sus ideas de una seguridad europea reinventada pueden quedar en nada. Lo que puede ser factible en un segundo periodo de cinco años al frente de Francia, seguramente no lo será antes del 24 de abril, la fecha de la segunda ronda de las elecciones.Roger Cohen es el jefe del buró de París del Times. Fue columnista del diario de 2009 a 2020. Ha trabajado para el Times durante más de 30 años y se ha desempeñado como corresponsal y editor en el extranjero. Criado en Sudáfrica y Gran Bretaña, es un estadounidense naturalizado. @NYTimesCohen More

    • 88 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      Emmanuel Macron Recounts Face-Off With Vladimir Putin

      by

      The French leader recounted his face-off with Vladimir Putin and dismissed Washington’s exchange of letters with Moscow, gambling that his diplomacy could pay off before April elections.PARIS — Around a table much smaller than the 20-foot-long oval slab across which he confronted President Vladimir V. Putin in Moscow, President Emmanuel Macron gathered a few journalists this week to confide that the crisis in Ukraine was taking up “more than half my time, the bulk of my time” because the world stands “at a tipping point” of history.The table was some six miles up in the air, on the presidential plane that whisked Mr. Macron to Moscow, Kyiv and Berlin this week, where he warned of “irreversible” damage if Russia invaded Ukraine, and said it was imperative “not to surrender to fate.”Mr. Macron is convinced that the current crisis, marked by Russian revanchism after its perceived humiliation by the West, reflects a failure to rethink Europe’s collective security after the end of the Cold War. On that, at least, he and Mr. Putin seem to agree. The formidable task before the French president is to figure out what could possibly replace it, and convince others, including the United States, of its virtues.By the end of the week, the standoff with Russia, which conducted military exercises all around Ukraine’s borders, looked as menacing as ever. Yet just nine weeks from a presidential election, Mr. Macron has made the risky bet that he can coax Mr. Putin toward dialogue and that French voters will be more taken with his global stature than alienated by his inattention.If he fails, he risks not only losing their votes and their confidence, but also damaging his prestige and that of his country by being seen abroad as an overreaching leader.Wary of that perception, he has taken great pains to coordinate his efforts with other European leaders, some of them skeptical, and with President Biden. A 75-minute conversation on Friday among Western leaders displayed a united front behind attempts to persuade Russia “to de-escalate the crisis and choose the path of dialogue,” the European Commission said.A satellite image showing the deployment of military housing and vehicles in Rechitsa, Belarus.Maxar Technologies, via ReutersMr. Macron was 11 when the Berlin Wall came down. Mr. Biden was 46. Some divergence of view is probably inevitable. Mr. Macron sees no reason that the structure of the alliance that prevailed over the Soviet Union should be eternal.“The question is not NATO, but how do we create an area of security,” he said. “How do we live in peace in this region?” Part of his goal in Moscow, he suggested, had been to prod Mr. Putin away from a NATO obsession — that Ukraine should never join the alliance — toward another “framework.” He said he had told the Russian leader “the framework you propose is false.”To turn up at the Kremlin, facing the man who has put a gun to the head of the West with 130,000 troops massed on the Ukrainian border, was necessary, Mr. Macron argued. Opening another diplomatic avenue, more flexible than the exchange of letters between Russia and the United States that Mr. Macron repeatedly dismissed as useless, gained time by locking in meetings in the coming weeks. The two leaders are expected to speak again on Saturday.Understand Russia’s Relationship With the WestThe tension between the regions is growing and Russian President Vladimir Putin is increasingly willing to take geopolitical risks and assert his demands.Competing for Influence: For months, the threat of confrontation has been growing in a stretch of Europe from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea. Threat of Invasion: As the Russian military builds its presence near Ukraine, Western nations are seeking to avert a worsening of the situation.Energy Politics: Europe is a huge customer of Russia’s fossil fuels. The rising tensions in Ukraine are driving fears of a midwinter cutoff.Migrant Crisis: As people gathered on the eastern border of the European Union, Russia’s uneasy alliance with Belarus triggered additional friction.Militarizing Society: With a “youth army” and initiatives promoting patriotism, the Russian government is pushing the idea that a fight might be coming.Over more than five hours on Monday, the two leaders confronted each other. Mr. Macron said he hammered on “the guarantees he could give me on the situation at the border” to such a degree that Mr. Putin at one point said he was being “tortured.”Mr. Putin, with equal insistence, attacked NATO’s expansion east since 1997 and the aggression this constituted.Ukrainian marines on Wednesday in the eastern Donetsk region.Tyler Hicks/The New York TimesAsked about the much mocked long table, Mr. Macron said, “Well, it was hardly intimate.”The Kremlin has disputed that Mr. Macron won any concessions, but said there were “seeds of reason” in his approach, in contrast to attempted British diplomacy, which was dismissed by the Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, as a conversation between “the mute and the deaf.”What Mr. Macron’s new framework might be for Ukraine’s security and Europe’s is unclear. But it appears that it would somehow offer Ukraine ironclad guarantees of its sovereignty and independence in ways that left NATO membership as a mirage, as it simultaneously satisfied Russia that Ukrainian security had not been strengthened at the expense of Moscow’s.In effect, Mr. Macron believes that some sleight of hand is conceivable that would at once leave Ukrainians free and secure to look West for their future, and Mr. Putin free to continue thinking the two countries form one “historical and spiritual space,” as the Russian leader put it in a 5,000-word disquisition on “the historical unity of Russians and Ukrainians,” published last summer.This is a hybrid concept, but not atypical of its proponent. Over the years, Mr. Macron has become known as the “at the same time” president for his constant juggling of different sides of questions — first in favor of reducing France’s reliance on nuclear power, now in favor of increasing it — and for his intricate dissection of issues that sometimes leaves observers wondering what he really believes.That he believes passionately in the European Union, and the development of Europe as a more independent power, is unquestionable. It is one issue on which he has never wavered, and now he seems to think the hour of reckoning for that conviction has come.If nothing else, with Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany meeting with Mr. Putin in Moscow next week, Mr. Macron has made Europe count in this crisis, alongside the United States. That is more than can be said for Britain.President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on Monday during a meeting with President Emmanuel Macron of France in Moscow.Pool photo by Thibault Camus“Through its major states, Europe has returned to a stage from which it seemed to have been marginalized,” Michel Duclos, a former French ambassador, commented in a paper published this week by the Institut Montaigne.Mr. Macron has had to work hard to keep doubtful European states, particularly those that once lived under the Soviet yoke, aligned with his diplomatic efforts. With France currently holding the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union, he has tried to reach out to everyone — one reason his days are consumed by Ukraine.His schedule will have to shift somewhat in the coming weeks. Mr. Macron has not yet declared his candidacy for re-election as president, but will almost certainly need to do so in the next couple of weeks. The deadline is March 4, and the first round of voting April 10.For now, Mr. Macron leads in polls, which give him about 25 percent of the vote, with three right-wing candidates trailing him and splintered left-wing parties far behind. Among the rivals to his right there is significant support for Mr. Putin’s strongman image and his denunciation of Western “decadence,” so engagement with the Russian leader also serves Mr. Macron politically.Although he is the favorite to win, the likelihood of a high abstention rate among French people disillusioned with politics and the strong appeal of the far right make Mr. Macron’s re-election anything but certain. If Mr. Putin ignores his diplomacy and does invade Ukraine, all bets will be off.Supporters of the far-right presidential candidate Éric Zemmour last week in Lille, France.Christophe Petit Tesson/EPA, via ShutterstockÉric Zemmour, the far-right insurgent in this election, said last month that Mr. Putin “needs to be respected,” adding that “Putin’s claims and demands are completely legitimate.” He also said, “I think NATO is an organization that should have disappeared in 1990.”Marine Le Pen, the perennial nationalist and anti-immigrant candidate, said last year that “Ukraine belongs to Russia’s sphere of influence.”“By trying to violate this sphere of influence,” she added, “tensions and fears are created, and the situation we are witnessing today is reached.” Ms. Le Pen refused to sign a statement issued last month by far-right parties gathered in Madrid because it was critical of Mr. Putin.Their stances demonstrate the gulf that separates far-right French admiration of Mr. Putin from Mr. Macron’s engagement. The French president’s conviction that Russia needs to be part of a new European security architecture is combined with resolve that Ukraine maintain its sovereignty.If Mr. Macron has caused unease through his criticism of NATO, he has held the line on not ceding to the Russian leader’s demands.Asked when he would turn his attention to declaring his candidacy, Mr. Macron said: “I am going to have to think about it at some point. You can’t do over hasty things. You need the right moment.”If he does not find that sweet spot, Mr. Macron’s diplomacy, and his ideas of reinvented European security, may come to nothing. What may be doable in a second five-year term leading France will certainly not be doable by April 24, the date of the second round of the election. More

    • 113 Shares159 Views

      in Elections

      Germany’s ‘Invisible’ Chancellor Heads to Washington Amid Fierce Criticism

      by

      Olaf Scholz will try to repair Germany’s credibility in the Ukraine crisis when he meets President Biden on Monday. Next on his agenda: Kyiv and Moscow.BERLIN — One headline asked, “Where is Olaf Scholz?” A popular magazine mocked the German chancellor’s “art of disappearance.” And his ambassador in Washington wrote home that Germany was increasingly seen as an unreliable ally in a leaked memo that was all the buzz this past week and began with the words: “Berlin, we have a problem.”With the threat of war hanging over Europe and rising tensions in the standoff with Russia over Ukraine, Mr. Scholz is headed to Washington on Monday for his first meeting with President Biden since taking over as chancellor in December. Foremost on his agenda: Show the world that Berlin is committed to the Western alliance — and, well, show his face.Less than two months after taking over from Angela Merkel, his towering and long-serving predecessor, Mr. Scholz is drawing sharp criticism at home and abroad for his lack of leadership in one of the most serious security crises in Europe since the end of the Cold War.His Social Democrat-led government, an untested three-way coalition with the Greens and Free Democrats, has refused to send arms to Ukraine, most recently offering 5,000 helmets instead. And it has been cagey about the type of sanctions that could be imposed in the event of a Russian invasion.As for the chancellor, he has made himself conspicuously scarce in recent weeks — so scarce that the newsmagazine Der Spiegel described him as “nearly invisible, inaudible.”While President Emmanuel Macron of France and Prime Minister Mario Draghi of Italy have been busy calling President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, Mr. Scholz has so far neither picked up the phone to Moscow nor visited. He has not gone to Kyiv, Ukraine, yet, either, and his visit to Washington, some note, took almost two months to organize.Ukrainian soldiers on Saturday on the front line in eastern Ukraine. While the United States and other NATO countries rushed military aid to Ukraine, Germany offered 5,000 helmets.Tyler Hicks/The New York TimesLast week, Emily Haber, Germany’s ambassador to the United States, sent a memo to Berlin, warning of “immense” damage to Germany’s reputation. It was not just the news media but many in the U.S. Congress who questioned Germany’s reliability, she reported. In the view of many Republicans, she wrote, Berlin is “in bed with Putin” in order to keep the gas flowing.It has not helped that since then, Gerhard Schröder, a former German chancellor from Mr. Scholz’s Social Democrats, accused Ukraine of “saber rattling” and just on Friday announced that he would join the board of Gazprom, Russia’s most prominent energy company.“Scholz’s central mission for his Washington visit has to be restoring German credibility,” said Thorsten Benner, a founder and the director of the Global Public Policy Institute in Berlin.“It’s not how Mr. Scholz envisaged his first U.S. trip as chancellor,” Mr. Benner added. “But international security was never near the top of his agenda.”Mr. Scholz, 63, has been a familiar figure in German politics for more than two decades. He was general secretary of his party and mayor of the northern port city of Hamburg before serving in two governments led by Ms. Merkel’s conservatives, most recently as her finance minister.A labor lawyer and lifelong Social Democrat, Mr. Scholz narrowly won the election last fall on a platform promising workers “respect” and a higher minimum wage, while nudging Germany on a path to a carbon-neutral future.Foreign policy barely featured in his election campaign, but it has come to dominate the first weeks of the new administration. Rarely has a German leader come into office with so many burning crises. As soon as Mr. Scholz took over from Ms. Merkel in early December, he had to deal not just with a resurgent pandemic but with a Russian president mobilizing troops on Ukraine’s borders.Russian infantry vehicles during drills in January in the Rostov region of Russia. The standoff with Russia over Ukraine has proved particularly vexing for Mr. Scholz.Sergey Pivovarov/Reuters“It wasn’t the plan,” said Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff, the vice president of the Berlin office of the German Marshall Fund. “This is a government that has huddled around an ambitious plan of industrial transformation, but the reality of a crisis-ridden world has interfered with their plans.”Of all of the crises, the standoff with Russia has proved particularly uncomfortable for Mr. Scholz. His Social Democrats have traditionally favored a policy of working with Moscow. During the Cold War, Chancellor Willy Brandt engineered “Ostpolitik,” a policy of rapprochement with Russia.The last Social Democratic chancellor, Mr. Schröder, is not just a close friend of Mr. Putin’s, he has also been on the payroll of various Russian energy companies since 2005, notably Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2, the two gas pipelines connecting Russia directly with Germany under the Baltic Sea.It was not until last week, after Mr. Schröder’s comments about Ukraine, that Mr. Scholz felt compelled to publicly distance himself from the former chancellor.“There is only one chancellor, and that is me,” he told the public broadcaster ZDF.His party’s divisions over Russia are one way to explain why Mr. Scholz has shrunk away from taking a bolder lead in the standoff with Russia, prompting some to lament the loss of leadership of his conservative predecessor.Mr. Scholz won the election last year primarily by convincing voters that he would be very much like Ms. Merkel. Terse, well briefed and abstaining from any gesture of triumph, he not only learned to sound like the former chancellor, he even emulated her body language, holding his hands together in her signature diamond shape.But now that he is running the country, that is no longer enough. German voters are hungry for Mr. Scholz to reveal himself and increasingly impatient to learn who he is and what he actually stands for.The receiving station for the $10 billion Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, which connects Russia directly with Germany. If Russia invades Ukraine, Mr. Scholz will be under enormous pressure to close it down. Sean Gallup/Getty ImagesAs the current crisis unfolds, Mr. Scholz’s imitation of Ms. Merkel is also less and less convincing. She was understated and studious, and often kept her work behind the scenes, but she was not invisible.In the spring of 2014, after Mr. Putin invaded Crimea, Ms. Merkel was on the phone to him almost every day. It was Berlin that united reluctant European neighbors behind costly sanctions and persuaded President Barack Obama, distracted by domestic affairs, to focus on a faraway conflict.At that point, of course, Ms. Merkel had already been chancellor for nine years and knew all of the protagonists well.“The crisis came very soon for Scholz,” said Christoph Heusgen, a veteran diplomat and Ms. Merkel’s foreign policy adviser during the last Ukraine crisis.Mr. Scholz’s advisers have been taken aback by the level of criticism, arguing that Mr. Scholz was merely doing what Ms. Merkel had so often done: Make yourself scarce and keep people guessing while engaging in quiet diplomacy until you have a result.When Mr. Scholz has spoken up on the current crisis — referring to the Russia-owned gas pipeline Nord Stream 2 as a “private-sector project” before pivoting to saying that “everything” was on the table — he has conspicuously recycled language that Ms. Merkel used before.President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia with Chancellor Angela Merkel in Deauville, France, in June 2014. In the spring of 2014, after Mr. Putin first invaded Ukraine, Ms. Merkel was on the phone to him almost every day.Sasha Mordovets/Getty ImagesBut given the escalation in the current crisis, that language is long outdated, analysts say.“He’s overlearned the Merkel style,” Mr. Kleine-Brockhoff of the German Marshall Fund said. “He’s Merkel-plus, and that doesn’t work in a crisis.”After facing mounting criticism from Kyiv and other Eastern European capitals, Mr. Scholz’s leadership is increasingly being questioned at home, too.In a recent Infratest Dimap poll, Mr. Scholz’s personal approval rating plummeted by 17 percentage points, to 43 percent from 60 percent in early January, the sharpest decline for a chancellor in postwar history, the firm says. Support for his Social Democrats fell to 22 percent, lagging the conservatives for the first time since last year’s surprise election victory.Mr. Scholz’s team announced that after returning from Washington, the chancellor will pivot to a full schedule that he hopes will shift German diplomacy into high gear. Following his meeting with Mr. Biden, he will meet with Mr. Macron; the Polish prime minister, Andrzej Duda; and the three leaders of the Baltic States. The week after, he will travel to Kyiv and Moscow, in that order.Senior diplomats say it is high time for such a pivot, starting with Monday’s visit to the White House.Mr. Scholz has a seeming center-left ally in Mr. Biden, who has so far refrained from publicly criticizing Berlin. Not since President Bill Clinton’s second term have both the White House and the German chancellery been in the hands of center-left leaders, and for all of the wavering on the German side, the two administrations have been in close contact throughout.Mr Scholz, right, listening to President Biden, left, at the start of the virtual Summit for Democracy in December. Mr. Biden has so far held off on publicly criticizing Berlin.Michele TantussiBut patience is running thin, and Mr. Scholz will have to bring something to the table.“There has to be a visible sign of commitment to the alliance,” Mr. Kleine-Brockhoff said. “That’s what other allies are doing: The Spanish, the Baltic countries, the Poles, the Brits — everyone has offered something to strengthen deterrence on the eastern flank.”German lawmakers have started preliminary conversations about beefing up their troop presence in Lithuania, officials say. Other options include more naval patrols in the Baltic Sea and more air patrols in Bulgaria and Romania.As important as any material commitment may be the words Mr. Scholz uses — or does not use — to publicly communicate that commitment.“Maybe for the first time he could mention Nord Stream 2 by name when talking about possible sanctions,” Mr. Kleine-Brockhoff said. “He needs to make a clear statement that Germany gets the situation and will stand with its allies in a language that appeals to people in the U.S. and ideally not in his usual flat language,” he added. More

    • 125 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      Macron and Scholz Meet and Call for More ‘European Sovereignty’

      by

      The new German chancellor made his first foreign stop in Paris, where the two leaders discussed a more independent, bolder Europe.PARIS — On the face of it, President Emmanuel Macron, a showman, and Chancellor Olaf Scholz, a study in reserve, would not be natural companions. But the world has changed, and for France and Germany the imperative of building what they call a “sovereign Europe” has become overwhelming.So Mr. Scholz, who took over from Angela Merkel on Wednesday, chose France as his first foreign destination, not only because that tends to be what newly installed German chancellors do, but also because, as he said standing beside Mr. Macron in Paris on Friday, “We want to reinforce Europe, work together for European sovereignty.”The two men, who first met in Hamburg, Germany, in 2014, held a working lunch at the presidential palace that reflected “the essential need to meet quickly,” as Mr. Scholz put it afterward at a 20-minute news conference. “Our first exchanges demonstrated a solid convergence of views,” Mr. Macron said.Their tone was serious but convivial, with Mr. Macron referring repeatedly to “dear Olaf” and using the less formal “tu,” rather than “vous,” when addressing the chancellor. At the end of the news conference they fist-bumped — a far cry from the image of President François Mitterrand and Chancellor Helmut Kohl holding hands on the battlefield of Verdun in 1984, but a Covid-era indication of friendship.Mr. Scholz’s embrace of “European sovereignty” was surely music to Mr. Macron’s ears, as the French president prepares to take over the rotating six-month presidency of the European Union on Jan. 1. The bloc faces an immediate crisis as Russia builds up troops on the Ukrainian border and the pandemic refuses to wane.Asked about the Russian buildup, Mr. Scholz said, “It is clear to all of us that there is no alternative to de-escalation.” Mr. Macron, who seemed skeptical of any imminent Russian threat, said, “We must avoid all useless tension.”Mr. Macron’s vision for a Europe of “power,” backed by real European military and technological capacity, tends toward the grandiose. Mr. Scholz may not like that style — his German government coalition prefers the more prosaic “enhancing European capacity to act” — but the general goal is intensely shared, perhaps more so than in the later Merkel years or at any time since the Cold War.The distance from shared goals to shared action in the European Union is always great because 27 countries have to be aligned. Still, the trauma of Covid-19 and its accompanying economic challenges have brought urgency, as has a sense of European vulnerability in a more unstable world where American leadership is no longer assured.Demonstrations in Frankfurt last week after Germany imposed new Covid regulations.Kai Pfaffenbach/Reuters“I’m more optimistic than I was with Ms. Merkel toward the end,” said Wolfgang Ischinger, a veteran German diplomat. “We have a window of opportunity.”That window may be narrow. Any joint Franco-German plans could be rudely interrupted in April if Mr. Macron is defeated in the French presidential election. He is the favorite, but if France lurched toward the ascendant nationalist hard right, all bets would be off.A German priority in the coming months will be to avoid that outcome, making accommodating gestures toward Mr. Macron more likely.France and Germany have always been the motor of European integration; when they stall, so does the whole project. Although the need to confront the pandemic brought budgetary breakthroughs, Europe has found itself in the shadow of Brexit and internal division while China rose and the United States turned its attention elsewhere.The 177-page coalition agreement of Mr. Scholz’s three-party government alludes to ultimate evolution toward a “federal European state.” Mr. Macron, with the election in mind, has not gone that far — the French attachment to the nation is fierce — but the mere German mention of a United States of Europe suggests new boldness and revived ambition.Still, there are differences. Where Mr. Macron speaks of European “strategic autonomy,” Mr. Scholz prefers “strategic sovereignty.” The difference is not small.“Germans do not want strategic autonomy if that means independence from the United States,” said Cathryn Clüver, the director of the German Council on Foreign Relations.The French president offered some de rigueur praise of NATO when laying out his European presidency program on Thursday. He said it had proved its “usefulness.” But he broadly views European independence as an emancipation from the United States.Germany, intensely attached for historical reasons to the American anchor of European security, is wary of any strategic distancing from Washington. This view is broadly shared in several European Union states, including Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, especially at a time when Russian troops are massed on the Ukrainian border.All this complicates both the meaning and the attainability of whatever European sovereignty may be.A Christmas market in Paris last week as virus cases were rising in Europe.Ian Langsdon/EPA, via ShutterstockFrance and Germany share the view that they preserved a multilateral global system based on the rule of law and Western values while the United States, under former President Donald J. Trump, embraced nationalism and disparaged Europe.Understand Germany’s New GovernmentCard 1 of 6The post-Merkel era begins. More