Author: Mariam Macharashvili
Following on from Russia’s full-scale aggression in Ukraine, France’s foreign policy towards the so-called post-Soviet states has changed. In 2022, President Macron condemned Russia’s aggression and emphasized that the attack on Ukraine was “a turning point in the history of Europe and our country.” The first major change in the French foreign policy came in late spring 2022, when Paris formally decided to champion Moldova, Ukraine and Georgia’s joining the EU, a significant decision in light of France’s former, years-long opposition to further EU enlargement. In 2023, at the NATO Vilnius Summit, the French president showed unprecedented support by backing military assistance to Ukraine and its subsequent NATO membership. In 2024, President Macron noted, “the defeat of Russia is indispensable for the security and stability of Europe,” and within the framework of the “strategic leap” idea, he even went so far as to not rule out the deployment of allied troops in Ukraine.
In addition to supporting Ukraine, France signed an agreement with Armenia and Moldova for defense cooperation. For the same purpose, official visits to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan were held. These moves are now a subject of discussion among diplomats and experts, who see France’s current policy either as a drastic change, a tactical move, or an ambivalent position. Despite this, all agree that France has become active in the so-called post-Soviet space. “France has begun to look much more to the East. The idea that Paris is only concerned with the [West African] Sahel region no longer holds water,” said Gesine Weber, an analyst at the Marshall Foundation.
In our blog, we will discuss the possible reasons why France’s policy towards the region has changed.
- The perception of Russia as a threat – Russia’s aggression in Ukraine was an important factor for France, one that led to a reevaluation of Putin’s regime, strategic relations with Russia, and French foreign policy approaches as a whole. For decades, France considered Russia to be one of the most important powers in the world, cooperation with whom was essential to balance the US influence in Europe on the one hand, and China’s growing ambitions on the other. This is confirmed by an article published in the French publication Le Monde, which describes how attractive Vladimir Putin’s regime is to a part of the French political elite, based on a common feeling of nostalgia for past greatness, and anti-Americanism. Accordingly, initially, President Macron chose the policy of “dialogue and firmness” in relation to Russia. The president, “obsessed” with the idea of Europe’s strategic autonomy, at first advocated for the construction of a European security architecture together with Russia, seeing the states formed after the collapse of the USSR purely from the Russian perspective, and effectively paying little to no attention to Russia’s aggressive policy towards these eastern countries.
Yet, the outbreak of war on the European continent was both politically and morally unacceptable for France, as it posed a significant danger not only to Ukraine, but also to Europe. The perception of the tangible threat coming from Russia gave impetus to a strategic debate in France, which ultimately led to a change in the country’s position. It became clear that Russia was not actually a constituent part of the European security architecture, but rather its adversary.
The war in Ukraine was not the only reason for the about-turn in France’s position. Added to this was the Russian Wagner group’s sowing of anti-French sentiment in Western Sahara.
Following the announcement of its support for Ukraine, Russia emerged as a danger within France, further reinforcing the view of Russia as a genuine menace. Moscow has significantly increased its subversive operations, propaganda and disinformation aimed at influencing public cohesion in France, support for Ukraine, and the results of the European parliamentary elections. As a result, France has begun strengthening ties not with Russia, but with Russia’s neighboring states, making the mentioned states part of the framework of European security in Paris’s ongoing strategy.
- Eastward enlargement of the European Union as an opportunity for France – After the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war, France supported the granting of the EU candidate status to Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia. For France, EU enlargement is a response to geopolitical challenges that promotes security and stability on the European continent, as well as an opportunity to present the EU as a strong strategic actor in its immediate neighborhood. Experts have named the change in France’s approach to EU expansion the “Copernican revolution”. This is confirmed by the words of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of France, Catherine Colonna, on the accession of Ukraine to the European Union: “Ukraine will be stronger and Europe will be strengthened by Ukraine.”
France is driven by a further interest: the admission of new members to the European Union also means the beginning of internal changes, changes which are important for the realization of France’s long-standing dream to reform the institutions of the EU. In Bratislava, in May 2023, Macron said that the EU needed to expand and “rethink its governance and objectives”. For France, therefore, enlargement may be an opportunity through which Macron’s vision of the country as a fiscally strong, militarily more self-reliant, and geopolitically and strategically stronger autonomous actor will be realized.
- An alternative power in the region – After the outbreak of the Second Karabakh War, and especially with the war in Ukraine, France has seen that the traditional influence of Russia in the so-called post-Soviet space is slowly decreasing. First of all, this relates to Armenia, Russia’s main ally in the South Caucasus, which Russia left to stand alone against Azerbaijan. The gradual weakening of Moscow and the desire of the states in the region (Armenia, Moldova) to seek allies in Europe leaves space for France to become a new alternative power in the region and fill the existing power vacuum. With the signed defense agreement, France on the one hand expressed its support for the security of Armenia and Moldova, and on the other shared a message that the participating countries are perceived by France as an integral part of European security.
During his visit to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, Macron announced his intention to deepen bilateral relations with them in the field of defense (including through the supply of air defense systems) in order to jointly fight against international threats and protect sovereignty. France, like other militarily powerful states, has often used arms exports as a diplomatic tool for its own interests.
In addition, it is worth noting that in recent years, France has lost its influence in Africa in line with the active steps taken by Russia and China. There is an opinion that the strengthening of French influence near the Russian border may be its response to exactly those Russian moves.
- Resources – France’s interest in the Central Asian countries are related to the import of uranium, which is used in nuclear power plants. Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are the third largest suppliers of uranium to France (see Table 1 for uranium suppliers to France). After a military junta staged a coup in the summer of 2023 in Niger, which supplies 15 percent of France’s uranium needs, questions have been raised about whether the African country can continue to be a reliable source of the raw material. Replacing Niger’s resources with Russian reserves would not be a viable solution, as the import of uranium from Russia could be called into question if the EU imposes sanctions on the Russian nuclear sector. Macron’s visit to Central Asia served to circumvent this issue, aimed at signing a new agreement with Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan in the energy field and increasing the import of uranium to France.
With this decision, France serves not only its own national interests, but also the EU’s “Global Gateway” initiative, a new European strategy to strengthen sustainable and secure connections around the world in the digital, health, education, energy and transport spheres. The EU aims to become an alternative to China’s ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ for Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan by sharing investments and cooperation within the framework of this strategy. Therefore, deepening ties in Central Asia also aims to balance China’s growing influence.
Thus, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and full-scale aggression, which was politically and morally unacceptable for France, France’s foreign policy towards the “post-Soviet” countries changed. France’s traditional approach to Russia has also changed – Paris no longer considers Moscow a constituent part of the European security architecture; on the contrary, it is perceived as a genuine threat to Europe. Accordingly, France condemned Russia’s aggression and supported the provision of military aid to Ukraine, its accession to NATO, as well as the granting of EU candidate status to Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia- changes which experts named “France’s Copernican revolution”. In addition, France signed defense agreements with Moldova and Armenia, and an agreement was signed with Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan in order to increase the import of uranium and reduce the threat to the French energy sector. Such steps show that Paris no longer looks at the “post-Soviet” countries from Russia’s prism, but that they see the deepening of relations with these countries as part of its intention to become an alternative power in the region to balance the influence of Russia and China. In doing so, it also serves the objectives of the EU’s “Global Gateway” strategy. It should be noted that, for France, supporting the eastward expansion of the European Union is not only a response to Russian aggression, but also an opportunity to reform the EU, which implies the implementation of Emmanuel Macron’s idea of strategic autonomy.
Table 1: Uranium suppliers for France (2022)
Source: Le Monde (https://www.lemonde.fr/en/les-decodeurs/article/2023/08/04/how-dependent-is-france-on-niger-s-uranium_6080772_8.html )