French President Emmanuel Macron speaks with the press as he arrives for the 79th Session of the United Nations General Assembly at the United Nations headquarters in New York City on Sept. 24.LUDOVIC MARIN/AFP/Getty Images
The last time French President Emmanuel Macron came to Canada to visit Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was six years ago, when the two were seen as fresh centre-left leaders working to keep the rules of the world intact. A lot has happened since then.
This time, Mr. Macron is set to arrive in Ottawa on a day the Commons votes on a non-confidence motion. Mr. Trudeau will survive – for now.
Explainer: Why are the Conservatives filing a non-confidence motion, and what does it mean?
Mr. Macron was supposed to come earlier this year, but he had to face down a challenge, too. After France’s far-right National Rally made gains in European elections, he triggered legislative elections in an ultimately successful bid to thwart their rise. The outcome of his gamble was touch and go for a while.
Mr. Macron and Mr. Trudeau are two survivors on the world stage who are now unpopular at home. The Canadian Prime Minister is the longest-serving current G7 leader; the French President is second.
But the world is rougher. Wars rage in Ukraine and Gaza. And some of the global rules they were trying to save in 2018 are busted.
Advisers will certainly still see value in Wednesday’s meeting. For both – the rare remaining democratic incumbents who held power through the pandemic and inflation – it’s a brief opportunity to draw focus away from domestic politics and onto their roles as world leaders.
In France, Mr. Macron’s trip this week to New York for the UN General Assembly, followed by this trip to Canada, is being seen as his return to the global arena after months of being consumed by political turmoil at home. It can’t hurt Mr. Trudeau to host France’s President in Montreal on Thursday, where the topics will include the promotion of the French language.
They share an interest in artificial intelligence that they discussed back in 2018 and will highlight again in Montreal. And they aren’t going to create political headaches for each other.
“I’ve seen them up close over the years,” said Canadian Senator Peter Boehm, a former diplomat, deputy minister and the Prime Minister’s G7 representative in 2017 and 2018. “These guys really get along. There is no stiffness there.”
Mr. Macron’s 2018 visit to Ottawa was a chance for the two leaders to huddle before the G7 in Charlevoix, Que., about ways to deal with then-U.S. president Donald Trump’s threat that he would disrupt global trade with steep tariffs.
Back then, the two leaders spoke out as defenders of stable international trade rules and a rules-based global order. They cited the 2016 Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, or CETA, as an example of practical, progressive trade rules.
But France’s domestic politics have got in the way of CETA. The country never ratified it, so not all its measures apply. It was rejected by France’s Senate this past spring.
In the meantime, global trading rules have been giving way to economic nationalism and geopolitical competition between the U.S. and China. Mr. Trudeau’s government now mirrors massive U.S. industrial subsidies and tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, as many Western countries emphasize securing global supply chains.
That hasn’t blown up France-Canada relations, but now Mr. Trudeau and Mr. Macron are navigating a world where economic nationalism, not free trade, are in fashion. And behind the scenes, the two leaders will undoubtedly compare notes on the prospect that disruptions to trade will be accelerated in a new, chaotic way by a second Trump presidency.
In 2024, Mr. Macron is a leader in a continent where there is war and attitudes to security are shifting. France is beefing up its defence budget, while Canada is seen as a NATO laggard.
But both leaders are stalwart backers of Ukraine’s struggle against Russia’s invasion, and supportive of Kyiv’s request for U.S. approval to strike targets inside Russia – and wary of the prospect that, if elected again, Mr. Trump would pull U.S. support from Ukraine.
Though they won’t be itching to raise it in public, Mr. Macron and Mr. Trudeau will discuss the potential for widening war in the Middle East – and the fact that both face deep political divisions at home over the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and Israeli strikes in Lebanon.
But for both Mr. Macron and Mr. Trudeau, domestic political division is now the critical backdrop to every venture on the world stage.