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Macron’s strategy was to spend as much time as possible with Trump, hoping to use their relationship to advocate for Ukraine and Europe.

So, I'm not French or European, so this is an outsider's standpoint.

But I've read past material in the French media claiming that Macron has historically strongly favored personal discussions between himself and foreign leaders, having processes that cut out the French foreign office and relied upon his personal interactions. I believe the phrase they used was "hyperpersonalized" diplomacy.

kagis

The article I was thinking of was much longer and focused specifically on France, but here's another talking about it and using the same "hyperpersonalized" term, so I don't think that it's just that author:

https://www.politico.eu/article/emmanuel-macron-ukraine-war-vladimir-putin-russia-diplomacy-france-documentary/

The film confirms what Elysée hacks have known for a long time — that Macron runs France’s foreign policy single-handedly with a small team of advisers. During the 115 minutes of the documentary, France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian makes an appearance just once and is never filmed speaking. It’s Macron’s diplomatic advisor Bonne who discusses with Macron the French president’s phone calls with Putin, who listens in on the calls and discusses the Elysée’s official statements on the subject. Macron’s advisers aren’t seen challenging the president in any meaningful way.

“[The film shows] a diplomacy that is operated by a handful of people, as if they were running a start-up, as if everything could be resolved with the mobile numbers of ‘Olaf’, ‘Volodymyr’ and ‘Vladimir’, (without neglecting the importance of direct contacts of course),” Le Monde’s Washington correspondent Piotr Smolar wrote on Twitter.

French presidents traditionally have more control over their country’s foreign policy than other western leaders who have to wrestle with strong parliaments or foreign affairs ministries. But for Duclos, the documentary exposes the weaknesses of a hyper-centralized diplomatic machine.

This is talking about a French documentary, which might have driven the article that I read as well.

I don't know whether that's a fair, objective assessment. I don't have the familiarity with French political currents to make that call. But it at least sounds plausible to me.

The problem is that Macron's time leading France has seen several major foreign policy fiascos for France, and a number of them center around what looks to me like Macron getting an incorrect assessment via that personal interaction route.

• Macron personally interacted with Australian leadership surrounding the submarine deal, and was confident that French defense contractors had it in the bag. Then, AUKUS went through, and Macron in particular was blindsided.

• Macron aimed at personal phone calls with Putin in the runup to the invasion of Ukraine, and was convinced that Russia would not involve Ukraine and that he could personally influence Putin.

I think that there was one other big issue, something where he was negotiating with another EU member, but I can't recall what it was now.

There have also been a few articles that have made it to the English-language press on smaller issues that have made me a little suspicious that Macron hasn't, perhaps, been as effective as someone in the diplomatic corps might have been.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/20/europe/macron-cyclone-mayotte-french-swear/index.html

Macron tells cyclone-hit Mayotte islanders to be grateful they are French after facing jeers

French President Emmanuel Macron has faced jeers from locals on the cyclone-battered French overseas territory of Mayotte, telling them they should be “happy to be in France, because if it wasn’t France you’d be 10,000 times even more in the s***.”

Like, Macron might be perfectly right on the financial side, but I am deeply suspicious that that was not the best statement to make, regardless.

Then I remember some point where he was calling Italy a "rogue member of the EU" or similar. At this point, there was Article 7 activity against both Poland and Hungary, and the UK was in the Brexit process. I remember commenting something like "whatever the merit or lack thereof of attacking Italy, you need to end some of the conflicts in the EU. With this, you have one of the six largest members leaving the EU, you're trying to strip voting rights from another, and you're calling another a 'rogue member'. You cannot have this many fights at once. You will paralyze the EU."

https://www.politico.eu/article/emmanuel-macrons-italian-snubs/

Now, okay. I have Trump running my country, and I think that Trump is considerably more objectionable than Macron as a diplomat. But I am hesitant to say that Macron doing one-on-ones or personally-driving diplomacy with foreign leaders has been all that great for France.