Trump’s participation in the June G7 summit in Evian was praised as a high point in the relationship, with the U.S. president showing signs of support for Ukraine and prolonging his visit to France to join Macron and his wife for dinner at the gilded Versailles Palace.
“We have our ups and downs in our relationship with the U.S.,” said a former French official, who has kept informed of the transatlantic relationship. Macron is capable of challenging America’s bullying at the Economic Forum of Davos, but “can also hug President Trump and invite him to sign his Iran deal in Versailles.”
The hold-up in Lechevallier’s approval process will end up being “an anecdote,” said the former official, who, like others quoted here, was granted anonymity to discuss a sensitive topic. “But it confirms we are not afraid of a confrontation” with Washington, they added.
For a senior figure from Macron’s Renaissance party, however, the U.S. targeting a senior French diplomat is “staggering.” Lechevallier is currently chief of staff to Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot and was Macron’s classmate at the elite ENA graduate school.
“We’ve been extremely cooperative, even considerate, on Iran … We’ve been polite and diplomatic. And we’re faced with something that is a bit humiliating,” said the official.
Diplomatic tensions
The French foreign ministry declined to comment on Lechevallier’s stalled approval procedure and has not protested publicly. But Paris has not rowed back its criticism of the U.S. human rights record either.