Macron is all talk, no action on Ukraine, says left-wing rival Glucksmann

PARIS — French social democratic lead candidate Raphaël Glucksmann slammed the insufficient level of European support for Ukraine, accusing leaders including President Emmanuel Macron of “taking pleasure in speaking, but showing weakness in actions.”

“We still haven’t put our production lines in order, we still haven’t done what needed to be done,” Glucksmann told POLITICO at an event in Paris on Wednesday. “There’s such an imbalance in firepower that we are at a tipping point.”

Asked about the risk of an imminent Ukrainian defeat, Glucksmann blamed Western Europe for “not having been up to the task” following the launch of Russia’s attack against Ukraine.

Glucksmann, a member of the Socialists and Democrats group in the European Parliament, said France sends “only 3,000 shells per month” to Ukraine, while Russia fires “20,000 shells a day.” While some early estimates indicated that Russia could be firing as many as 20,000 shells a day, others sees that figure as being closer to 10,000.

He accused Macron of having “neglected Warsaw and Vilnius” in favor of “Beijing and Moscow,” accusing the French president of being part of “an old tradition of French elites who feel smug when they have a special relation” with the Chinese and Russian regimes.

Backing Kyiv’s war effort is a necessity not just for Ukraine — but also for France, he added, pointing to Russian cyberattacks against French hospitals. “There’s a hybrid warfare being led against our democracies, which translates militarily on the Ukrainian front.”

Rising in the polls

Glucksmann, who represents his own party Place Publique and is supported by the French Socialist Party, is leading his second EU election campaign. Though his list received barely above six percent of the vote in 2019, he has since gained traction through his campaigning on human rights issues and his hawkish stance on Ukraine.

Macron’s EU election candidate, Valérie Hayer, initially underlined similarities between Glucksmann and herself, but the presidential camp has since gone on the offense against the left-leaning candidate, with the Minister Delegate for Europe Jean-Noël Barrot calling him a “European in appearance only.”

“I’ve been fighting for Europe’s general interest for 20 years,” Glucksmann responded. “I didn’t wait for them to become realists on Vladimir Putin before I started defending Europe’s principles and interests.”

While trying to battle Marine Le Pen on the right, Macron’s list also risks losing disaffected voters on the left flank. A senior official for the Renaissance party in January shared with POLITICO concerns that some voters who supported Macron in the past could see the “serious and friendly” 44-year-old Glucksmann as a satisfying alternative, after a succession of crises hit the president’s camp. 

A poll released Wednesday by Harris Interactive showed Glucksmann receiving 14 percent of the projected vote — just two points behind the pro-Macron list, with far-right candidate Jordan Bardella still leading the race with 30 percent.

Glucksmann’s brand of social-democratic politics seeks to attract voters disaffected by both the hard-left approach of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s France Unbowed movement, and Macron’s shift to the right.

According to Glucksmann, pro-European, left-leaning voters were “caught in a funnel,” between Mélenchon and Macron and forced into overlooking either their belief in a stronger EU and support for Ukraine by backing the radical left, or on economic issues by siding with Macron.

“I’m convinced that the love of democracy, the will to resist authoritarian rule and the dream of a political Europe are in the majority on the French left,” said Glucksmann.