Washington’s Operation Midnight Hammer attack on key Iranian nuclear sites has the macrocosm of world politics struggling to anticipate its global implications. However, European reactions to the strike have thus far been true to form. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz repeated President Donald Trump’s demand that Iran negotiate with Israel and the U.S. The U.K. adopted a similar posture while worrying about potential escalation. France, however, expressed concern, denied any role in the bombing, and urged everyone to exercise restraint.

This mealy-mouthed critique of U.S. policy continues President Emmanuel Macron’s unceasing unilateral quest for enhanced influence over France’s former colonies in Africa and the Middle East. With each attempt, his policies have either failed, opening the door to Russian and other hostile influences, or they have contravened American efforts to bring peace and stability to troubled areas. It is high time for rethinking and re-strategizing in Paris, but Macron appears not to have gotten the message.

While Macron plays at pursuing glory abroad, a report commissioned by the French Minister of the Interior found that the Muslim Brotherhood has been executing a long-term strategy of state capture of legal French socio-political structures to make itself impregnable and subvert France’s Laïcité (secularism) principle. This takeover in slow motion has been facilitated by Macron’s neglectful failure to stop the Middle East immigration that is fueling the Brotherhood’s expansion. Perhaps he should be concentrating less on providing unwanted advice to the rest of the world and more on putting France’s house in order.

Macron’s Middle East policies have consistently been ill-timed and misconceived. He has striven to reassert France’s great power standing and regional historical interests in opposition to both local powers and long-standing American attempts to bring about order. Washington’s efforts, despite setbacks and wars, continue to make progress. Signal accomplishments include the 2020 Abraham Accords, a series of agreements to normalize relations and work toward mutual progress and prosperity, signed by Israel and several Arab Gulf States and North African governments. The latest achievements before the June 22 bombing of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure were the defeats of Tehran’s massive missile and drone attacks on Israel in April and October 2024, executed together with Israel and other Arab states. 

More recently, Macron, together with Saudi Arabia, took a stab at spearheading a move to “recognize” a Palestinian state despite there being no evidence that such a state is feasible, while at the same time there is abundant evidence that if constituted it could quickly become a haven for Iranian-backed terrorists and threaten Israel, Jordan, and other Arab governments. This move was also a direct challenge to U.S. policy. Nevertheless,  As Le Monde commented, Macron wanted “to make history” and be at the forefront of a “political solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. His plans were rather abruptly scuttled, however, by Israel’s initiation of Operation Rising Lion, intended to destroy Iran’s nuclear weapons program, launched on June 13.

Simultaneously, Macron meddled in Lebanon, obviously seeking to restore the luster of French hegemony there. French interests in Lebanon date back to the first crusade in 1095. Seeking leverage, he used controversial International Criminal Court charges as a pretext to threaten the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then War Minister Yoav Gallant if they entered France.  Then he dismissed the charges after using his threats to push for a ceasefire with Hezbollah, saving the terrorist Iranian proxy from well-deserved Israeli retribution. 

Macron’s pattern of sparing antisemitic terrorists from Israel’s self-defense has been consistent. Last week France, the U.K. and Germany advocated a ceasefire that would have preserved Iran’s nuclear program for future deployment against Israel. This despite the fact that Jerusalem’s destruction of earlier Iraqi and Syrian programs had kept the Middle East from getting into a nuclear arms race despite rising Iranian and other nuclear threats.

Finally, Macron turned a blind eye to the Muslim Brotherhood’s widespread efforts to insert itself irrevocably into France’s state structure. The report from the Ministry of Interior states that in France, “The various name changes made by Muslims of France are part of a continual attempt to institutionalize the organization, which has constantly sought to position itself as an interlocutor of public authorities and displayed a typically Muslim Brotherhood desire to represent the entire French Muslim population, even though it constitutes only a relatively small fraction.” (author’s translation).

Taken together, Macron’s efforts to self-aggrandize on the international scene as a counterbalance to the rather dismal state of French domestic politics paints an embarrassing picture of failure and misjudgment. Before the U.S. delivered a blow to Iran’s nuclear program, Macron was pushing for a broad and complex package deal to limit Iranian nuclear and ballistic missile programs, and to curb Tehran’s funding of terrorist proxies. But Iran has negotiated in bad faith in the past and steadfastly evaded any commitment that obstructed its drive to attain nuclear weapons.

In Africa, Macron has presided over the loss of the bastions of French influence established in the 1960s by Charles De Gaulle and his successors to ensure France’s hegemony in its former West African colonies. African writers have demonstrated that despite idealistic promises, Macron consistently failed to grasp African realities, leading ultimately to the continuation of colonialist practices. For example, France exploited its dominant position in Niger’s uranium sector to fuel its large nuclear project, reportedly at the excessively low price of 80 cents/kilogram. So, when a coup occurred in 2023 the new regime promptly raised the price to $210 /kilograms. Neither is Niger the only example of French colonialism in its former colonies. In Mali, French forces failed miserably to defeat Islamic militants threatening the country. Despite initial successes in Niger and Chad, the disastrous Operation Barkhane resulted in thousands of Malian casualties and over 2.5 million people were displaced.

Here too a coup exposed the failure of French neo-colonialism, leading Mali to send the French troops packing and to instead solicit help from Russia’s mercenary Wagner Group, which proceeded to engage in terrorizing the countryside and exploiting Mali’s and Niger’s gold and uranium mines while also failing to counter local Islamists.

Thus, it seems that despite Macron’s ongoing failures in the Middle East and Africa, he, unlike De Gaulle, has learned nothing. Only a comprehensive reassessment and reformulation of policy can restore Franco-American cooperation.

Stephen Blank is a Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Previously, he worked as a professor at the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College.