There appears to be no stopping France’s Emmanuel Macron. A newcomer to foreign policy, the French president has developed a huge appetite for the international limelight.

In a bid to boost his country’s global clout and promote French leadership, Macron has been positioning himself as Europe’s chief spokesman on the great international issues of the day.

With German Chancellor Angela Merkel immersed in trying to form a new government, and British Prime Minister Theresa May deep in Brexit negotiations both with the European Union and her divided Cabinet members, Macron has had the field to himself.

From the Middle East to North Africa and climate change to Russian meddling, the 39-year-old, France’s youngest head of state since Napoleon, has been presenting himself as the fresh face of Western diplomacy, often contrasting his engagement with the unilateralism of U.S. President Donald Trump.

The past month, the French leader, who turns 40 on December 21, went on a three-day trip to West Africa, visited Algeria and the Persian Gulf, and held talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Paris, where he criticized Trump’s decision to formally recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

On Dec. 12, he hosted a major climate change summit marking the second anniversary of the Paris deal aimed at reducing greenhouse gases. He then hosted in the French capital African leaders to discuss the fight against Islamic extremism.

Macron’s activities on the world stage have prompted a surge in popularity in his home country, despite claims by foes that his efforts are mostly theatrical and have not borne fruit. Other European leaders have expressed irritation with Macron for pursuing largely uncoordinated diplomatic interventions.

Reconciling Libya

In July, Italian ministers openly criticized Macron for organizing a meeting in Paris of the leaders of two of war-torn Libya’s rival factions to discuss a political power-sharing deal. They argued the French leader’s efforts were distracting from a coordinated U.N. and European Union effort to engineer a political settlement in Libya among three rival governments and dozens of militias. Italy’s foreign minister, Angelino Alfano, complained of “too many open formats in Libya, too many mediators, too many initiatives.”

An opinion poll published Sunday suggests Macron has turned around a record slump for a new French president and secured an “unprecedented” bounce back, thanks to his overseas forays, according to French newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche. A survey conducted for the newspaper found 52 percent of respondents are now satisfied with Macron — up from 40 percent in August.

In order to make his mark on the world stage, the French leader has at times acted purposefully as a foil to Trump, contrasting his foreign policy vision based on multilateralism and committed to rules-based cooperation with the U.S. leader’s America First agenda.

Climate refuge

After Trump pulled the United States out of the Paris climate change pact, Macron announced that France would become a “second homeland” to climate researchers and make good on the loss of American funding of climate research — all in order to “make our planet great again,” a jab at Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan.

Nonetheless, since his stunning election upset six months ago, Macron has been able to maintain warm relations with the U.S. leader, according to officials on both side of the Atlantic, who say he enjoys the best relations with Trump of any European leader.

“Macron has cleverly balanced charm and challenge when it comes to Trump,” said a British diplomat.

“The two most talked about Western politicians of the last electoral cycle may be standing on opposite sides of the ideological spectrum, but they get along pretty well. While they disagree starkly on global action, on climate change and the Iran nuclear deal, the fight against terrorism brings them together,” according to analyst Célia Belin.

Terrorism isn’t the only thing that brings them together. They are both political outsiders — neither held elected office before their recent presidential wins. Trump, argues Belin, “perceives Emmanuel Macron as a maverick, capable of taking risks, and as an ambitious leader who wants to shake things up.”

On climate change, Macron was careful last week to soften his criticism of Trump’s disdain of the Paris climate change accord, saying, “I’m pretty sure that my friend President Trump will change his mind in the coming months or years, I do hope.”

Next year, differences on Iran risk impacting the Macron-Trump relationship. The two are diametrically opposed when it comes to the Iran nuclear agreement (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA) and whether it should be preserved.

Macron plans to visit Tehran early in 2018, and that trip could bring their differences to a head — although, like Trump, he remains worried about Iran’s ballistic missile program and its growing military clout in that region.

That aside, there was appreciation in the White House, said U.S. officials, for Macron’s skillful mediation last month in Lebanon’s political crisis and his role overseeing Lebanese leader Saad Hariri’s exit from Saudi Arabia and return to Lebanon via Paris. This allowed Hariri a way out of an impasse that risked confrontation between Tehran and Riyadh.
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Russia poses an increasing threat and is willing to use propaganda, subversion and cyberattacks to undermine Britain and the rest of Europe, Britain’s national security adviser said Monday.

Mark Sedwill, who is overseeing a review of Britain’s security services, told a parliamentary committee that Russia is attempting to “sow dissension” and undermine democracy in Britain and other western nations.

He said the threats from Russia included from unconventional warfare such as disinformation campaigns to the dangers posed from an increase in its military capability in the North Atlantic and in Eastern Europe.

“We know that the Russian threat is definitely intensifying and diversifying,” Sedwill said. “The Russian attitude has worsened more generally toward the West and that seems set to continue.”

Britain has been more vocal in recent weeks about the threat posed by Russia at a time when there is growing concern among some members of the ruling Conservative party about the impact of cuts to defense spending.

Prime Minister Theresa May last month in her most outspoken attack on Russia accused the country of meddling in elections and planting fake stories in the media.

The head of Britain’s armed forces said last week that trade and the internet are at risk of damage from any Russian attack on underwater communications cables that could disrupt trillions of dollars in financial transactions.

Sedwill accused Russia of planting fake stories in the media about the conduct of soldiers in Eastern Europe, where NATO troops are based, to undermine the legitimacy of them being there.

He also accused Russia of meddling in the recent French elections even though he said this had no chance of changing the outcome of the vote.

“It clearly was designed to undermine the citizen’s trust in their systems and we see quite a lot elsewhere,” he said.
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As the most serious challenger during Vladimir Putin’s 18 years in power, Alexei Navalny has endured arrests, show trials and facefuls of green antiseptic that damaged his vision.

But in an interview Monday with The Associated Press, he said the biggest thing keeping him from becoming Russia’s next president is a political system that punishes him for rallying support and conspires to keep his face off the airwaves.

Putin’s approval rating is astronomical and he is widely expected to win another term with ease, but the fact that he won’t even say Navalny’s name suggests the anti-corruption crusader has struck a nerve. Navalny’s criminal record will probably keep him off the ballot — a sign, he says, of how much he frightens the political class.

Navalny, in his first interview since the start of the presidential campaign, said he would win it “if I am allowed to run and if I’m allowed to use major media.” And he said the Kremlin knows it.

“It’s the main reason they don’t want me to run,” he said. “They understand perfectly how ephemeral the support for them is.”

Poll results

That support certainly looks strong: The latest independent poll, conducted this month by the Levada Center, suggests 75 percent of Russians would vote for Putin. People in much of Russia back Putin as a matter of course, and Navalny supporters are routinely heckled, arrested and fined when they try to spread their message.

But there are also signs that enthusiasm for Putin may be starting to wane. Another Levada poll, conducted in April, found that 51 percent of people are tired of waiting for Putin to bring “positive change” — 10 percentage points higher than a year ago. Both polls surveyed 1,600 people across Russia and had margins of error of 2.5 percentage points.

Navalny hopes to capitalize on that discontent.

“Putin has nothing to say,” Navalny said. “All he can promise is what he used to promise before, and you can check that these promises did not come true and cannot come true.”

Social media, not TV

Navalny gets out his message on social media, using Twitter and Telegram and broadcasting a weekly program on YouTube. But television — the main source of information for most Russians — remains off limits because it’s controlled by the government.

Other opposition candidates are expected to run, notably socialite Ksenia Sobchak, the daughter of Putin’s mentor — but there is wide speculation that her candidacy is a Kremlin plot to split Navalny’s support. The only other candidates who are critical of Putin have too little support for the Kremlin to view them as threats.

Putin himself has announced his re-election bid but so far refrained from any campaigning events. Even so, his face is everywhere — at his annual news conference last week, carried live for nearly four hours on Russian television, he touted his accomplishments and even taunted Navalny — but stuck to his practice of not saying his name.

Navalny was not a candidate during Russia’s last presidential election in 2012, but he spearheaded massive anti-government protests that rattled Putin. Amid dwindling popularity, Putin seized Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula and threw support behind separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine, striking a chord with millions of Russians who felt like losers in the outcome of the Cold War. Now, people are tiring of the Ukrainian conflict and becoming more focused on their own economic woes, providing fertile ground for Navalny’s message.

Navalny published his full election platform last week, focusing on fighting corruption and funneling more money into education and health care. He calls for a windfall tax on oligarchs and huge cuts to Russia’s bloated bureaucracy. Unlike Putin’s focus on foreign policy, Navalny’s platform is almost entirely domestic, which he credits for growing support in places like Novosibirsk, Russia’s third-largest city, where he drew a large crowd in October.

“Our government is in the grip of illusions. They deal with Syria and they’re not interested in what’s happening in Novosibirsk, and people there feel it,” Navalny told the AP. “That translates into the fact that I’m receiving more support.”

Visibility, backlash

The blue-eyed Moscow lawyer first made his name in 2009 when he began publishing investigations into corruption at Russia’s biggest state-owned companies. When the AP first interviewed Navalny in 2010, he was a lone wolf, but he has since acquired allies and supporters who have made investigations into official corruption their full-time job.

With the visibility came the backlash: The 41-year-old Navalny has been convicted on two sets of unrelated charges, and his brother was sent to prison in what was largely viewed as political revenge. A conviction on one of the charges bars Navalny from running for public office without special dispensation — and the election official who will consider that request in the coming weeks has already said she sees no legal grounds for him to run.

In his only formal election campaign, Navalny ran for Moscow mayor in 2013 and got nearly 30 percent of the vote.

His presidential bid began a year ago, when he started to build a network of supporters across Russia. He currently counts over 190,000 volunteers, most of them young, from Russia’s western exclave of Kaliningrad to Vladivostok on the Pacific. His supporters have opened campaign offices in 83 cities and towns, including many where Putin is accustomed to winning by a landslide.

On his most recent visit to Putin’s heartland, 1,000 people braved temperatures of -15 Celsius (-5 Fahrenheit) to hear him speak in the industrial town of Novokuznetsk, where Putin got 77 percent of the vote in 2012.

Many of those in the crowd sounded weary of the president but said they saw no alternative. Asked about Navalny, many said they had heard very little about him.

While Navalny has captured the attention of a younger generation and the politically active via social media, he conceded he won’t be able to reach the broader population as long as he is barred from state television.

“We have won among the active political class despite the ban,” he said. “The politically active class will turn the politically dormant one in our favor. It’s going to happen in this election if I’m allowed to run.”
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