Emmanuel Macron was heckled and jeered on a state visit to the Netherlands as he faced pressure over both raising the French pension age and his warning that Europe must not become “vassals” in a US conflict with China over Taiwan.
The French president was due to give a speech on European strategic autonomy when two demonstrators against his pension changes were arrested as they ran towards him on his arrival at the University of Amsterdam.
The speech, interrupted by repeated heckling, had been seen as a chance to clarify his remarks in an interview on Sunday in which he called for Europe to act more independently from the US over Taiwan. French officials that insisted he would not apologise for his remarks, and pointed out that a French naval ship had been sailing through the Taiwan strait on Sunday, a sign of France’s commitment to Taiwan’s independence.
Opinion is sharply divided within European political circles about Macron’s remarks, acclaimed by Chinese media, that Europe must not get involved in US fights, and should aspire to become a third pole alongside Washington and Beijing.
He gave the interview just as China was undertaking military exercises off the coast of Taiwan in response to a meeting between Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ing-wen, and the US House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, in Los Angeles.
Degrees of unease with Macron’s freelancing were also emerging in Berlin, from where Annalena Baerbock, the German foreign minister, flew to Beijing on Wednesday for a long-planned visit that some officials framed as an exercise in damage limitation after Macron’s remarks.
The foreign policy spokesperson of Baerbock’s Social Democrat coalition partners, Nils Schmid, told Der Spiegel she faced “the unplanned challenge of clarifying Europe’s stance on Taiwan and firming up the warnings that the chancellor [Olaf Scholz] sounded during his meeting with Xi [Jinping] in November”.
Ahead of Baerbock’s departure, Andrea Sasse, a spokesperson for the German foreign ministry accused China of inflaming tensions with its military exercises around Taiwan. “We have the impression that measures such as threatening military gestures … increase the risk of unintended military clashes,” she said.
Germany is “working with our international partners to contribute to de-escalation” in the region, Sasse added.
Last August, Baerbock drew angry responses from Beijing when she likened Beijing’s threatening posture towards Taiwan to Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine.
Macron had in his interview cautioned against being drawn into a crisis over Taiwan driven by an “American rhythm and a Chinese overreaction”. He said in a later press conference in the Netherlands that France’s position on Taiwan had not changed and that he favoured the current “status quo” in respect of the island.
His call for greater economic and defence sovereignty for Europe is not in itself new and was criticised only when he coupled the aspiration with a call for Europe to distance itself from the US over Taiwan. He added that Europe “should not be caught up in a disordering of the world and crises that aren’t ours”.
In a sign of French disarray, the country’s foreign ministry cancelled a planned debrief on the trip for foreign diplomats in Paris on Tuesday as officials scrambled to make sure they had a consistent message and to limit any fallout with Washington.
US Republican senators have already responded by calling for the US to rein in its support for Ukraine if Europe is not prepared to back the US over China. The Republican senator Marco Rubio said: “If France won’t pick sides over Taiwan, maybe the US shouldn’t pick sides on Ukraine and leave it to Europe”.
The former US president, Donald Trump, accused Macron, who he said was a friend, of pandering to China’s leader.
The German leader of the European Peoples party in the European parliament, Manfred Weber, also openly criticised Macron, saying: “There is no middle ground between international law and the pursuit of empire by autocrats. To protect our freedom, democrats must stand together in defence of a rules-based world, in Ukraine and in Taiwan. We have to strengthen our alliance with the US.”
Schmid, a foreign policy expert and member of parliament for German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats, said both Scholz and Macron had long favoured the idea of “European sovereignty”.
But, he added: “The problematic thing about Macron’s visit is that he deliberately pulled out the European card and took the EU Council president, Von der Leyen, with him. But then he allowed her to be put in the second row. This has destroyed the hoped-for impetus for a common European policy on China.
“China is playing the card of dividing Europe. We must prevent that.”
Other SDP politicians said Macron was right that Europe should not be seen as an appendage of the US.
The Czech foreign minister, Jan Lipavský, said via a spokesperson: “The return of geopolitics means that we have to see more clearly who is our ally and who is not. Strong transatlantic relations between Europe and the US are the foundation of our security. Europe must invest more in its own security, but I do not see that as an obstacle or a limit for cooperation with the US.”
Marcin Przydacz, a foreign policy adviser to Andrzej Duda, the Polish president, made clear that Warsaw was not in favour of any shift away from Washington.
“We believe that more America is needed in Europe,” he told Polish broadcaster Radio Zet. “Today the United States is more of a guarantee of safety in Europe than France.”
The European Council president, Charles Michel, showed greater sympathy, saying: “There has been a leap forward on strategic autonomy compared with several years ago. On the issue of the relationship with the United States, it’s clear that there can be nuances and sensitivities around the table of the European Council. Some European leaders wouldn’t say things the same way that Emmanuel Macron did … I think quite a few really think like Emmanuel Macron.”
Baerbock’s China visit was originally scheduled to overlap with that of the EU foreign policy representative, Josep Borrell, and the two politicians were meant to attend some meetings together, but Borrell announced on Wednesday that he had to cancel his trip due to a Covid infection.
