Zourabichvili met President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday at the Elysée Palace, on her first bilateral foreign trip as head of state. The visit was also something of a return home. Although she was elected president of the land of her ancestors in December, Zourabichvili was born in France and spent three decades working in its foreign service.
While Macron repeatedly stressed the friendship between their two countries, he also stuck to standard French talking points, designed to avoid rocking the boat with Russia. He reiterated France’s continued support for Georgia’s territorial integrity and sovereignty — but did not say explicitly that Moscow occupies 20 percent of the country.[...]
For France, any decision on Georgia is part of a bigger calculation about relations with Russia. And French ministers are not going to risk a confrontation with Moscow over a country of 3.7 million people, even if its president used to be one of their employees.[...]
Paris is willing to move to a harder line with Moscow generally, argued Nicolas Tenzer, a professor at Sciences Po university in Paris, but not on its own. “There is a will to be more firm with Russia but not for a confrontation, because France is still looking for allies," he said. “Trump’s America isn’t it and the Europeans are split.”
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