What to make of Emmanuel Macron’s frenetic foreign policy

HE IS the Duracell Bunny of diplomacy. This month Emmanuel Macron hopped back from a three-day trip to west Africa, then bounded through visits to Algeria and Qatar. In Paris he received Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, to discuss peace prospects for the Middle East. Then the French president hosted a climate jamboree on December 12th, two years after the Paris deal (see article). A day later, more summitry: he led a group of “G5” African leaders in talks on fighting terrorists in the Sahel and beyond.

Mr Macron was a relative newcomer to foreign policy when he became president in May, but his appetite for it is large. He says, unapologetically, that France must be “ambitious” in the wider world and become “a great power again”. His efforts are at times mostly theatrical, such as when he hosted Donald Trump for Bastille Day celebrations in July. But he talks with a sense of mission, arguing that liberal, democratic European countries are duty-bound to oppose authoritarians and address complex global problems together, even if old allies, notably America under Mr Trump, opt for isolationism.