48 hours spent French President Emanuel Macron in Egypt were enough to signal the world, and especially to himself, that France is still here, and still wants to be relevant. However, in his seemingly dramatic visit, in the center of which is a call for a ceasefire in Gaza and a discussion of “The Day After,” it was hardly felt in Israel. And maybe not by chance.
Macron, who, as their amendments, sinks into home -aggregated, political and social crises – chooses time and time again to escape. To the foreign policy, to the Cairo markets, to regional peaks. This is not a policy, it is nostalgia – an attempt to restore France’s glamorous days as an power in the Middle East. The problem? The world has changed, and no one is really waiting for France, certainly not in the new Middle East, nor in Paris.