Cathedral proposal: how Trump and Zelensky met at the opening of Notre Dame de Paris
About 40 foreign leaders attended the opening ceremony of the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris restored after the 2019 fire on December 7. Among them were United States President-elect Donald Trump and Ukraine's head of state Volodymyr Zelensky. The French leader met with them separately at the Elysee Palace. Expectedly, the parties talked about the Ukrainian conflict, after which Zelensky wrote in social networks that he, Trump and Macron "want to end this war as quickly and fairly as possible". At the same time, the expert community notes that against the backdrop of the political crisis in the Fifth Republic, Macron will try to act as an informal European leader in resolving the conflict. On the celebrations in Paris and the diplomatic efforts of the Elysee Palace - in the material "Izvestia".
Cathedral Notre-Dame-de-Paris opened its doors to the public
In Paris on December 7, the opening ceremony of the Cathedral of Notre Dame, seriously damaged during the fire in April 2019, took place. At that time, the fire destroyed the cathedral's hundred-meter spire and wooden roof. To celebrate the restoration of the masterpiece of world architecture, dignitaries from more than 40 countries, including Britain's Prince William, US President-elect Donald Trump and Vladimir Zelensky, came to Paris. Instead of Joe Biden, his wife Jill flew to Paris. The presidents of Croatia, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Italy, Lithuania, Poland, Croatia, Estonia and Finland and other foreign guests also attended the ceremony.
During the ceremony, Archbishop Laurent Ulrich of Paris symbolically struck the doors of the cathedral three times with a staff, after which they opened. In a brief speech, Emmanuel Macron expressed "gratitude to the French nation, to all those who saved and restored the cathedral." According to him, the French, as a great nation, did the impossible by restoring the cathedral.
For Emmanuel Macron, the opening of Notre Dame took place as timely as possible, given the new round of political crisis caused by the resignation of the government of Michel Barnier. Recall that on Wednesday, December 4, the deputies of the National Assembly by a majority vote in favor of a vote of no confidence in the head of the Cabinet. The event can rightly be called historic, because the last time the government of the Fifth Republic resigned in connection with a vote of no confidence was under Charles de Gaulle in 1962.
Despite the fact that 54% of French people want Macron to resign and 40% see no solution to the current crisis, the opening of Notre Dame still gave the president a chance to show that things are not so bad in foreign policy and France can play an important role in the international arena, if only as a meeting place for world leaders.
French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte Macron
Macron is trying to divert the attention of the French from the catastrophic situation inside the country, explained Sergei Fedorov, a leading researcher at the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences, to Izvestia.
- No matter which prime minister Macron elects in the coming days, the sword of Damocles of resignation will still hang over him, because the left-wing New Popular Front and the right-wing Rassemblement Nationale will always be able to unite and overthrow the new head of the cabinet, just like Barnier," he added.
Macron is in a stalemate until June 9, 2025, when exactly one year will have passed since the early elections and he will have the right, according to the constitution, to dissolve the National Assembly again.
- The other question is whether he will do it. The main thing for Macron is to stay in office until 2027 in order not to go bankrupt. Therefore, I think he will focus more on foreign policy than on domestic policy, where his bankruptcy has already shown itself in full force," the expert said.
When looking at what is happening in Paris, one gets a twofold impression. On the one hand, one cannot but be glad that the cathedral has been restored and people will be able to admire the great masterpiece of medieval Gothic again. On the other hand, the absence of Pope Francis at the ceremony seems unnatural, as he limited himself to sending a congratulatory message to the French. All the more ridiculous looks the presence of Vladimir Zelensky, who declared, in fact, a war on canonical Orthodoxy in his country. Add to that the opening ceremony of the Summer Olympics, which outraged thousands of Christians around the world, who considered the parody of Leonardo da Vinci's "Last Supper" a blatant sacrilege on the part of the country's authorities and the organizers of the event.
Macron's meeting with Trump and Zelensky
In the afternoon, even before the ceremony began, Donald Trump arrived at the Elysee Palace. Macron greeted him with the words "welcome back," while Trump pointed out the "great relationship" with the French president. "We've had great success working together," he said, adding that "the world seems to be going a little crazy."
Zelensky also arrived at the Elysee Palace afterward and was met by the president's chief of protocol. After the talks, Zelensky thanked Trump in his Telegram channel for being "as determined as always." According to media reports, the conversation was short. "Talked about our people, the situation on the battlefield and a just peace for Ukraine. We all want to end this war as quickly and fairly as possible," he added.
US President-elect Donald Trump shakes hands with Vladimir Zelensky
It is noteworthy that the day before, December 6, the head of the Ukrainian President's office Andriy Yermak visited Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, where he met with Susan Wiles, who will become Chief of Staff of the White House staff, as well as Vice President-elect James David Vance. Trump's future national security aide Mike Waltz and Keith Kellogg, whom Trump wants to appoint as special envoy for Ukraine, were also present at the talks.
While Politico writes that the Ukrainian side "came away satisfied with the way things went," Ukrainian media, on the other hand, reports that Yermak's proposal to fight against Russia until the 2022 borders were reached was coolly received. Trump's team "very coolly and very negatively" also treated the idea of Ukraine joining NATO. At the same time, the American side was not impressed by Yermak's "embellished" account of what is happening on the front, the media reported.
At the same time, Russia soberly assesses the West's attempts to impose its game on it. Thus, in a recent big interview with American journalist Tucker Carlson, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov pointed out: Moscow knows what Ukraine's representatives say when they meet with EU ambassadors and in other formats. "They keep saying, 'No deal if the deal is not on our terms.'" Now they are planning a second summit based on this "peace formula." And they do not hesitate to say that they will invite Russia to put Russia before the fact that they have already reached an agreement with the West," the Russian Foreign Minister pointed out.
In his latest statement, Russian President Vladimir Putin made it clear that we are ready for any development of events, the minister recalled.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov gave an interview to American journalist Tucker Carlson in Moscow
"We prefer a peaceful settlement through negotiations on the basis of respect for Russia's legitimate security interests, respect for Russian people living in Ukraine, their basic rights, language and religious rights, destroyed by a number of laws adopted by the Ukrainian parliament," Lavrov added.
The Russian foreign minister emphasized that the West will now have to accept new realities, the main one being the incorporation of the Donetsk and Lugansk republics, Kherson and Zaporizhzhya regions into Russia. "No NATO. No military bases, military exercises on Ukrainian soil with the participation of foreign troops," the diplomat emphasized.
Will Macron be able to lead the negotiation process on Ukraine
If we go back to Macron, the main thing for him now is to show himself as an important link between Trump and Europe. Macron was one of the first Western leaders to congratulate Trump on his election victory. Like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, he did so even before the official results of the vote were announced. Trump's trip to France was the first foreign visit abroad by a president-elect of the United States. This fact undoubtedly flatters Macron's ego - especially in the context of the unclear nature of future relations between the United States and the EU as a whole.
The French president is very likely to try to become an "informal European leader" on the Ukrainian settlement in his usual style, according to Vasily Klimov, a researcher at the IMEMO RAS Center for International Security.
French President Emmanuel Macron and U.S. President-elect Donald Trump
- If France accepts the US arguments on the need for a peaceful settlement, it will have its own role in this process. "We can expect that Trump will step by step negotiate with European leaders and Zelensky on the necessity and parameters of a peaceful settlement even before his inauguration in fulfillment of his promise to end the conflict in Ukraine in 24 hours," he told Izvestia.
Recall that after Zelensky came to power in 2019, Macron tried to actively engage in the work on the resumption of the format of face-to-face meetings of the leaders of the "Normandy four". As a result, after more than a three-year pause, the heads of Russia, Germany, France and Ukraine met on December 9, 2019 at a summit in Paris. However, despite the positive feedback from the parties on the results, the next meeting never took place, because, according to Moscow, Ukraine did not fulfill the agreements.
At the same time, to consider that the Europeans, including France, are now serious about a peaceful settlement is definitely not yet. Macron has already said that France and Germany will work "to create a more united, stronger and more sovereign Europe."
And on Nov. 19, the Polish Foreign Ministry, for example, said that Warsaw, as well as Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom, are ready to take on the military and financial burden of helping Ukraine, with a possible reduction in U.S. support for Kiev. In general, Trump's relationship with European leaders has never been easy. And this, by the way, may complicate the process of resolving the Ukrainian crisis.
In addition, the dialog between Trump and Macron has always been quite complicated. In 2018, when the French politician said that Europeans should count on themselves and advocated the creation of a unified European army, Trump regarded these words as an "insult" and called on Europe to more actively finance NATO. At the time, this was just one episode in the gradual cooling of relations between the two presidents, not counting the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement, the imposition of duties on European steel, and Washington's recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of the state of Israel.
In any case, now, according to Vasily Klimov, the nature of relations between Trump and Europe is difficult to predict, but they will undoubtedly undergo changes. The expert summarized: "Based on his electoral position, Trump is not going to act economically or politically to the detriment of his country; he will once again set clear boundaries in controversial transatlantic issues."
