Emmanuel Macron is passionate about predicting the end of eras.
Back in 2019, several years before Russia invaded Ukraine, NATO announced effectively brain dead. In fact, postwar military alliances have struggled to cope with this situation.
Now, at the G20 summit in South Africa, which is boycotted by its most powerful member, the United States, Macron is donning his Cassandra hat again.
“This first meeting on the African continent marks an important milestone in the G20 process,” Macron said in his opening speech in Johannesburg. “But we must also recognize that the G20 may be coming to the end of a cycle.”
He stressed that the very existence of the EU was at risk.
His prediction is reflected in this drab family photo, with several prominent leaders present struggling to fill space against a sparse background. Typically, the background of the photo should be iconic—Sugarloaf Mountain in Rio de Janeiro, the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial in New Delhi.
This effort to line up seemed half-hearted. Last year, when Joe Biden arrived late, the photo had to be retaken, and even then it was an ominous sign of American austerity. This year, Donald Trump may take center stage and give Cyril Ramaphosa a thumbs-up. Instead, it was last year’s host, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Italy’s Giorgia Meloni was absent from the initial squad, with substitutes replacing the seven absent leaders. Then wall to the far corner of the chamber to wait for another.
Underscoring this tendency, the French leader pointed to the absence of the United States from the negotiating table, the difficulties of protecting humanitarian law and the sovereignty of some countries, such as Ukraine, as evidence of the need for urgent collective re-engagement.
“We are trying to develop a common standard on geopolitical crises,” Macron said.
There is no doubt that the French leader is reflecting on his political life, with his presidential term ending in 2027. He is now the most experienced politician in the Group of Seven, which hosts next year, and has often reflected philosophically on the death of multilateralism.
In the past, before the existential threat he posed to the continent became self-evident, Vladimir Putin’s calls for a “real European army” were derided by some. But France has also struggled to combine words with action.