John Lichfield

"Neither elegant, nor worthy". President Emmanuel Macron responded with undisguised contempt today to Donald Trump's allegation that he was a victim of marital abuse lefigaro.fr/politique/ni-e…

Good news in a troubled world. France is NOT necessarily drifting towards its first Far Right leader since 1944. Two polls now suggest that the former Centrist PM Edouard Philiippe could beat the Far Right in the 2nd round of the Presidential election next May. 1/

6:49am: sudden spike in oil futures trading. no news. no announcement. nothing public. 7:05am: trump announces a pause on iran strikes. markets move. someone knew. 16 minutes early. $580 million in contracts. the corruption is staggering.

Senior EU officials in Brussels flagged a growing Greenland/Iran risk to me yesterday: That Europe's unwillingness to allow Trump to use their bases to attack Iran would reaffirm the idea in his mind that he has to fully own GL's territory in order for the Arctic to be secure

MAGA interference in Hungary's elections incoming Putin's tricks have not yet narrowed @magyarpeterMP 10-13% lead, so the Trump Administration and JD Vance is going to have a go Don't think it'll work. If anything, could actually help Magyar

Seems Europeans are using the Greenland playbook on Trump. They've understood strength and firmness is the best way to engage this administration

BREAKING: France is running out of the missiles it uses to shoot down Iranian drones. Macron’s response is not to ask America for more. It is to build a European nuclear arsenal that does not need America at all. La Tribune reported on 16 March that the French Air Force faces rapid depletion of Mica and Meteor air-to-air missile stockpiles for its Dassault Rafale fighters after intensive Shahed drone interceptions during Red Sea and Gulf patrol missions supporting EU Aspides and Hormuz escort operations. The Charles de Gaulle carrier group and land-based Rafale squadrons have been intercepting Iranian drones at a tempo that was never anticipated in peacetime procurement cycles. Each Meteor costs approximately €2 million. Each Shahed costs $20,000 to $35,000. France is spending sixty times more per interception than Iran spends per drone. The arithmetic is unsustainable. This is the same cost asymmetry that defines the entire war, applied to a NATO ally that did not start it. On 2 March, standing at the Île-Longue submarine base, Macron delivered the most significant shift in French nuclear doctrine since 1992. The speech announced three changes. First: France increases nuclear warheads for the first time in three decades. The previous count was approximately 290; the new total is classified under a new opacity policy. Second: a strategic hypersonic missile programme launches in 2026, with the M51.3 submarine-launched missile already operational and a next-generation SSBN ordered for 2036. Third: “forward deterrence,” dissuasion avancée, progressive European nuclear cooperation without sharing command or the decision to launch. Eight countries were named as initial partners: the UK, Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Greece, Sweden, and Denmark. Joint steering groups and nuclear exercises begin immediately. Rafale nuclear-capable aircraft can be temporarily forward-deployed to partner nations. But the red button stays in Paris. The decision stays with one person. The sovereignty stays French. The connection between the Rafale depletion and the nuclear pivot is the thesis nobody else is drawing. France’s conventional munitions are being consumed by a $20,000 drone from a country France is not at war with, in a conflict France did not authorise, supporting an operation France’s president publicly criticised as “outside international law.” The conventional stockpile that protects France’s European interests is being drained by an American war in the Gulf. Macron’s response is not to replenish from American stocks. It is to accelerate the one capability that no drone can exhaust and no ally can withdraw: nuclear deterrence under exclusively French command. The defence budget tells the story. France accelerated its target to €64 billion by 2027 with an additional €36 billion injection by 2030. The rearmament is not reactive. It is structural. Macron is using the Iran war, which is depleting French conventional capacity in real time, as the political accelerant for a European defence architecture that reduces dependence on the alliance whose war is causing the depletion. Trump views Macron as a frustrating independent operator. Macron criticised US strikes. France declined the Hormuz warship call. Yet France continues intercepting Shaheds with the very missiles it is running out of. The relationship is Gaullist strategic autonomy at full voltage: contribute enough to remain relevant, refuse enough to remain sovereign, and use the crisis to build the capability that makes the next refusal permanent. France is not leaving NATO. It is building the pillar inside NATO that functions when NATO’s leader is distracted by a war in the Gulf, a fuel tank fire in Dubai, and 26 Chinese aircraft over Taiwan. open.substack.com/pub/shanakaans…

‼️🇫🇷 One important, early first round score has been declared in today’s French town hall elections -  a very good, opinion-poll defying result for the former centrist PM @EPhilippe_LH, the mayor of Le Havre in Normandy. 1/

China? Send ships to rescue Trump from the mess of his own making? New levels of delusion. France, UK & Japan also very unwilling to enter a war on which they were not consulted. Sounds as if Trump is preparing to blame his allies for the mess he made - as EU officials suspected

Should the US now be considered a NATO/EU ally or a Russian ally? No doubt this will be a high agenda item when @EmmanuelMacron hosts @ZelenskyyUa at the Elysee today.

Growing concern in EU capitals that Trump is going to pressure the EU to clear up his mess in the Strait of Hormuz. Argument being: “You guys need the oil most, so you need to do the heavy lifting” on mine sweeping, naval-based air defence & the protection of shipping lanes

@sungleeiq @eshelm France doing nothing of the kind. Hope rest is more accurate

If you can understand French it's worth listening to Macron's speech this evening to the crew of the Charles de Gaulle off Cyprus Not for anything special that he announces but for the measured, intelligent tone Then imagine what Trump or Hegseth might have said

‼️🇫🇷 France is assembling an “unprecedented” fleet of eight frigates, an aircraft carrier and two helicopter carriers in the eastern Med and “off the straits of Hormuz”, President Emmanuel Macron said today.  1/

Merz is not pro-Trump. He is just tactical. As are Macron, Meloni, Starmer and many others. Why? Germany is fully dependent on the US for its security. And it can‘t afford to lose that protection, at least not for now. Over time, I believe - and hope - things will be different

🇫🇷‼️ France has sent a frigate to protect Cyprus, an EU ally, from Iranian missiles or drones, Macron announced tonight. He also said he had ordered the giant aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle and its frigate escorts to cut short a Baltic visit and sail to the eastern Med. 1/

It has been my assessment from the start (as I told @BBCr4today on Saturday) that the initiative to launch a decapitation strike on Khamenei came from the Israelis. It has been their objective for decades. Now Rubio has confirmed it.

🇫🇷🇫🇷🇫🇷 A bombshell? Not quite but President Macron went further than expected this afternoon in announcing progress towards a strengthened “European dimension” for France’s nuclear deterrent. 1/

My line @BBCr4today on the Iran strikes. Last June there were intensive US/Iran talks under way. Aborted by Israeli strikes on Iran which US joined. I think this is similar. The US-Iran-Oman talks seemed to be going well. Netanyahu preempted, and Trump felt he had to follow 1/5

@GBUnitedx 73 years

Has anyone been a Man United fan for more than 35+ years? 🔥❤️👹