Trump rejects Macron’s diplomatic movements while France seeks relevance

From Gaza to Greenland, French President Emmanuel Macron seems to take more and more daring diplomatic blows to the foreign policy of President Donald Trump, even if such gestures “do not gain weight” as Trump stressed last week after the French chief declared his intention to recognize a Palestinian state.

“The French presidents of Charles de Gaulle gave up on the idea that they are a natural counterweight to American foreign policy on the international scene,” said Alan Mendoza, executive director of the Henry Jackson Society, based in the United Kingdom on Monday in Fox News Digital.

Charles de Gaulle was the leader of France for a long time in the 1950s and 1960s and was famous resistant to American world domination, removing his country from the NATO military command structure in order to increase its military independence and criticize American policies in Eastern Europe and Vietnam.

Trump rejects Macron Move while we ignore the UN summit to the Palestinian state

Macron met Trump in Washington on the third anniversary of the large -scale military invasion of Ukraine. (Katopodis / Getty Images Tasos)

Such contrary actions, said Mendoza, “have in many ways the fifth French Republic, with characters larger than life throwing their point of view on the world scene.

“The difference is now that France has much less on a global scale than it did 60 years ago,” he said, adding that a weakening of the economy of the European country and its soldiers “could” mean that De Gaulle could roar, now Macron groans “.

“What was formerly a sign of French strength and confidence therefore more like a desperate attempt to escape non-record,” said Mendoza.

In a dramatic announcement last week, Macron said that at the United Nations General Assembly in September, France intended to declare its recognition of a Palestinian state, even though Palestinian terrorist groups continue to fight Israel in the Gaza Strip.

The Palestinians carry bags and boxes containing food and humanitarian aid delivered by the Gaza Humaninian Foundation, an organization supported by the United States, in Rafah, Southern Gaza Strip, on June 16, 2025. (AP photo / Abdel Kareem Hana)

The press release aroused the condemnation of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who declared that such a decision “rewards terrorism”.

He was also criticized by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who called the “reckless” decision and “a slap in front of the victims of October 7”. He said the United States firmly rejected such a plan.

Trump simply rejected Macron’s Gaza’s move, telling journalists from the White House on Friday “what he says does not matter.”

“He’s a very good guy. I like him, but this statement has no weight,” said the president.

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This is not the first time that the president reduced Macron as without consequences.

Last month, after the French president speculated on Trump’s reasons to leave the G7 summit in Canada early and return to Washington, the president wrote on his social platform Truth: “Bad! He has no idea of the reason why I am now on the way to Washington, but that certainly has nothing to do with a cease-fire.

In the same article, Trump said Macron was “the search for advertising”.

French President Emmanuel Macron is making a gesture as he stands on the Mont Nunatarsuaq glacier during a visit to Greenland on June 15, 2025. (Ludovic Marin / AFP via Getty Images)

The derogatory comments came after Macron directly contradicted Trump’s foreign policy by ending up on the way to the summit in the semi-autonomous arctic territory of Greenland, which Trump said that he wanted to acquire.

“Greenland should not be sold, so as not to be taken,” said Macron in a diplomatic blow to Trump’s foreign policy and apparently a rallying attempt of the support of other European countries to withstand the United States

Asked about Trump’s ambitions for Greenland, Macron, according to Reuters, said: “I do not think that is what the allies do. … It is important that Denmark and Europeans go to this territory, which has very high strategic issues and whose territorial integrity must be respected.”

In February, the French president paid his first visit to the White House since the return of Trump in power, and although the meeting seems to be warm, she also came in the middle of the tension on the American approach to the Russian-Ukraine War.

A few hours before the meeting, the United States voted against a United Nations resolution written by Ukraine and the European Union condemning Russia for its invasion.

President Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron serve his hand during a joint press conference in the east room of the White House on February 24 in Washington, DC (Katopodis / Getty Images Tasos)

Tensions between Macron and Trump are not personal, said Mendoza, but they are not completely ideological either.

They arise from the “desire to be Macron’s relevant and defend something,” he said. “The French are famous opposites, but they do it to be contrary.”

Reuel Marc Gerecht, a resident researcher at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, the Washington, DC reflection group, said that Macron was not “different from most European leaders. … Trump is simply not their cup of tea”.

“Most of them consider Trump as a convulsive and hostile force that considers America’s historical relations with Europe as transactional,” he said.

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“Macron, like most French leaders, is partly defined against the United States,” added Gerecht, explaining that, traditionally, France and America “had a” civilizing mission “or a competitive illumination mission”.

“The American way has been extremely attractive in Europe since the Second World War, but it came in part at the expense of the French, who culturally lost a lot of ground in the face of English speakers, especially the Americans,” he said. “Consequently, many French people have a romantic relationship with the United States”

On Macron, Gerecht added: “He is part of the French elite. They are very brilliant that strikes well above their weight, but, educational, temperament, they are almost the opposite of Trump.”