Paris, June 15, 2021 (Nouvelle Solidarité)—Following Biden’s proposals at the G7 and the NATO summits, a clear opposition has surfaced in France against the idea that Europe become a battering ram for the US against Russia and China. Merkel seems also to be prudently on the same line. The June 10th editorial in France’s main conservative daily, Le Figaro, entitled “Joe Biden at the G7 Summit: Conditional Friendship,” first reflects relief from the Europeans at Biden’s reaffirmation that the US is back on the multilateral agenda and that it has reaffirmed the US’s nuclear umbrella over Europe.
However, it immediately states unambiguously:
“Let there be no misunderstandings.... Biden will not content himself with some friendly pats on the back… He has one central objective: enroll US’s allies in the geopolitical competition he is launching against China. The Europeans would be wrong to underestimate the Chinese obsession of Joe Biden and of the American Congress which just voted up a $250 billion envelope [bill?] to beat Beijing in the technological race. Washington wants to project NATO towards the China sea and mobilize the G7 behind an aid plan to poor countries offering ‘an alternative’ to the Chinese New Silk Road. We can recall George Bush putting ‘all nations’ under a binary choice after 9/11. Joe Biden could be tempted to engage in that same road of ‘with or against all’, but Europeans are not happy with the prospect of a new Cold War which would put them under the [U.S.] grip. To get out of the suffocating embrace of the American friend without ripping apart the Western bloc’s unity, the allies must put conditions on the president: consultation, proportionality, engagement – the terms of a real partnership. It is up to them, then, to take up the role of mediators if they don’t want to become hostages.''
