What the French daily newspapers are saying about Vladimir Putin's dismissal of the French president's diplomatic efforts to resolve the Ukraine crisis.
The main headline in Le Monde is perfectly clear and uncompromising: "Emmanuel Macron struggles to deal with the diplomatic humiliation inflicted by Vladimir Putin".
The two presidents, you'll remember, spoke on the phone for nearly two hours on Sunday.
The press office at the Elysée Palace in Paris was delighted afterwards.
"Negotiations", "dialogue" and "diplomacy" were the key words. There were to be meetings between foreign ministers. The tri-partite crisis group involving Moscow, Kyiv and the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) was back in business. Even the normally crusty Kremlin seemed pleased. Joe Biden was ready to talk to Putin. Peace in our time.
Putin's call
And then Vladimir put in his own call to Paris. Monday, 16h15.
That was to warn Macron that the Russian leader was about to recognise the independence of the two self-proclaimed Ukranian republics, Donetsk and Louhansk. And Russian tanks would roll in to support the separatists and "defend" Moscow's interests.
Basically, everything established during Sunday's chat between the Russian and French heads of state was out the window.
Joe Biden and Boris Johnson, both of whom have been warning of war and apocalypse since this crisis began, seem to have been more on the ball than Emmanuel Macron.
"Yes, it's serious," admitted French Prime Minister Jean Castex in parliament on Tuesday. "Russia has broken international law".
That's one problem.
The other is that there's fifty days to go to the next French presidential election.
Républicans delighted
Macron could do without the public humiliation.
The right-wing Républicans are delighted. "The Macron presidency has been a disaster for France on the international stage," says a senior member of the electoral team behind right-wing presidential challenger Valérie Pécresse.
"Iran, Lebanon, Mali, the Australian submarine disaster . . . they were all supposed to boost France. They all turned out to be knives in the back."
Right-wing daily Le Figaro has chosen to focus on the development of the crisis in Ukraine, rather than on the latest presidential embarrassment.
That may be just as well.
The French right has a long history of losing at Russian roulette. Brejnev pulled the wool over Giscard's eyes in 1981 before invading Afghanistan. François Fillon is a director of one of the largest Russian energy consortiums. There's a big Putin fan club on the far right fringe of the Républican organisation.
Left-leaning Libération says the French president took a calculated risk. He got it wrong. He'll now have to pay the price in terms of losing luke-warm or undecided voters.
The only good news for the out-going leader is that there's no plausible opponent for those disaffected voters to support.
The French presidency has tried to play the whole thing down.
A Russian invasion has been on the cards for months, said a spokesman. Macron was just doing his best to avert an escalation. He wasn't fooled by Putin. He made a brave, last-ditch bid to defuse the crisis.
Le Monde suggests that, if nothing else, this latest setback is likely to further slow the formal engagement of Emmanuel Macron in the presidential race.
He is still not an official candidate.
And, the centrist daily suggests, when he does finally start campaigning, that won't leave him much time to deal with the everyday bread-and-butter issues crucial to French voters.
