Deciphering French Strategy in the Indo-Pacific

From the fanfare-laden reopening of Notre-Dame to the Artificial Intelligence Action Summit held in the cavernous halls of the Grand Palais, to last-minute summits of European leaders hastily convened in the gilded chambers of the Elysee, French diplomacy appears to have been in overdrive in recent months. Emmanuel Macron, France’s hyper-energetic and peripatetic president, has been even more active than usual — tirelessly shuttling across a war-torn European continent and a widening Atlantic Ocean in a desperate effort to shore up trans-Atlantic unity at a time of historic upheaval.