Emmanuel Macron confronts Vladimir Putin

FOR a republican country, the welcome could scarcely have been more royal. Exactly 300 years after a young Louis XV hosted Peter the Great at the Chateau de Versailles, on a trip to admire French imperial splendour, France’s new president, Emmanuel Macron, chose the same setting for talks with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin. The gold leaf on the palace shimmered in the spring sunlight. Plume-helmeted guardsmen lined the red carpet as Mr Putin stepped from his limousine. But if the symbolism on May 29th was friendly, the meeting itself hinted at an inner steeliness to the 39-year-old French president and diplomatic novice.

After two hours of talks, Mr Macron described the encounter as “extremely frank and direct”, which is as close as diplomatic jargon gets to admitting that things were tense. With Mr Putin standing by his side, in the centre of the chateau’s long gallery of paintings depicting glorious French battles, Mr Macron warned that his “red line” in Syria would be the use of chemical weapons. France would show “no weakness” in the face of any such attacks, and would not hesitate to retaliate.

The French president added that he had raised the question of gay rights in Chechnya with Mr Putin, and would be “constantly vigilant” about the matter. He said that he and the Russian president had agreed to fresh talks, along with Germany and Ukraine, over the implementation of the Minsk agreements on Ukraine. But the most revealing moment was when Mr Macron was asked by a Russian journalist why he had banned reporters from Sputnik and RT, two Russian news agencies, from his campaign headquarters. The answer, he snapped, was that they had behaved like “agents of influence and propaganda” and had spread “serious falsehoods” about him and his campaign. Mr Putin, next to him, was expressionless.

The meeting in Versailles was intended to reset Franco-Russian relations. Last year Mr Putin called off a trip to Paris, ostensibly to open a new Russian cultural centre, after François Hollande, Mr Macron’s predecessor, downgraded the visit following the Russian bombing of the Syrian city of Aleppo. Mr Hollande had previously cancelled the sale of two French-built warships after the Russian annexation of Crimea. Mr Macron stressed this week that voicing differences was an important way of taking things forward. His aides said that he wanted a “demanding dialogue”. “It’s important that Russia does not act in isolation; that’s when it becomes dangerous,” said one. They are particularly concerned to make sure Russia continues to receive international feedback while Germany is focused on domestic politics during its election campaign.

Mr Macron is a novice at global diplomacy, and nobody has been sure what to expect from him. The contours of his approach are now beginning to emerge, after a few days of high-level summitry last week at the NATO mini-summit in Brussels and the G7 get-together in Sicily. One point is the French president’s attention to symbols and gestures. After engaging America’s president, Donald Trump, in a lengthy, muscular handshake, Mr Macron described his firm grip as “not accidental”. It was important, he said afterwards, to earn respect from those such as the leaders of America, Russia or Turkey whose diplomatic relations were based on a balance of power.

The broader point is that Mr Macron wants to preserve and exploit France’s geostrategic independence, while restoring its global voice in a reinforced Europe. To almost any question for France, Germany will be the first answer. Mr Macron chose Berlin for his first foreign trip, and singled out Angela Merkel on arrival at the G7 meeting. He hopes to make his country once more a respected partner for Germany by carrying out economic reforms. But he also sees a global role for France, continental Europe’s only serious military power. His diplomatic inexperience could be less a disadvantage than an opportunity for a fresh start. As he showed this week with Mr Putin, Mr Macron is not just about charm. Now he needs to prove he can put a broader mix of skills to good use.