Trump is the one who stays alone

The actors on the world stage were solid on Sunday. While French President Emmanuel Macron, along with Chancellor Angela Merkel, called for commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the First World War to stress the need for international cooperation, Donald Trump chose his own path.

The US President did not walk side by side in the morning with about seventy heads of state and government who walked the last meters on foot on the Champs-Elysees to get to the city. Arc de Triomphe – an image evoking the memory of the march of world leaders. in Paris after the January 2015 terrorist attacks. He also held himself away from Macron's big peace conference in the afternoon

The last four-year piece commemorating the "Great War" between 1914 and 1918 began for the leaders of the world by a reception. on the Elysee, the French presidential palace. From there, they took a bus to the Champs-Élysées for a ceremony to the military glory, texts read by scholars of war soldiers in French, German, English and Chinese and music. Trump came alone. Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived with a delay and, laughing, raised his thumb when he saw his American colleague. Putin became more important in the peace forum with, among others, António Guterres, head of the United Nations.

Brief History Lesson

Macron, like last week during a memorial visit to northern France, was linking the news to a bloody past. He defended a multilateral world order as an alternative to "withdrawal, violence and domination".

French patriots, the president said, fought during the war to defend "universal values". "It's exactly the opposite of a people who considers only their own interests," he said. "Because patriotism is the opposite of nationalism.Nationalism is treason," said the president during a brief history lesson on international cooperation.

See also: World leaders gathered in Paris to commemorate the end of the First World War

After Europe "is almost suicidal", a world was created "in which friendship between peoples outweighs the passions of war, "he said. "On our continent, we call this the imposed friendship between Germany and France, we call this the European Union (…), which is what we call the United Nations."

Macron , elected on a very pro-European agenda in 2017, became the largest Western lawyer of the post-second world war. standing world order. After Trumps 'America First', he took initiatives to save the Paris Treaty on the climate and the nuclear deal with Iran after the withdrawal of the Americans. With charm and Realpolitik he tried to keep the lines open with Trump

. "Very insulting". Trump reportedly wrote that Macron was quoted as saying that this army should protect Europe against Russia, China and the United States. "Maybe Europe could first pay its share to NATO, largely subsidized by the United States".

This is not quite what Macron had claimed on Europe 1 radio (he said that Europe could no longer rely on US protection), but Macron said on CNN he preferred the "direct talks" to "diplomacy via tweets". He said he agrees with Trump that Europeans should contribute more to the NATO budget, but that does not mean that they will buy US weapons. He had lunch with the American president in Paris on Saturday.

Former Slaughterhouse

With the "Peace Forum of Paris" in the afternoon, Macron, symbolically supported by a large number of European and African leaders and, among others, by the Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, showed that it was not just Trump. In a former slaughterhouse turned into a conference room northeast of Paris, he symbolically delivered Merkel's opening speech. "Peace is not easy," she said. And: "It is easier to dismantle international organizations than to rebuild them."

Until Tuesday, at the Forum, representatives of governments, businesses and civil society organizations meet in small workshops to discuss gaps in the current multilateral structure with actors who normally do not have a voice in existing United Nations bodies.

This concerns, for example, the control of new technologies: fight against cybercrime, against digital electoral manipulation or false information. Secretary General Guterres pleaded Sunday for rules governing the use of artificial intelligence in weapons systems.

The forum for peace, funded largely by the business community, is to become an annual event, such as "Davos" for the economy, said the Elysee. This must lead to "concrete actions" for "modernized multilateralism". Because: "The old demons are back," Macron said in the morning already in the cold of the Arc de Triomphe – where Prime Minister Rutte was present. In the afternoon, in retrospect, he seemed more threatening at the great commemoration. "Was it a last moment of unity before the world entered a new mess?"