Last week, France’s president Emmanuel Macron threw the EU bubble into turmoil by suggesting that Europe should not become the United States’ “vassal” over Taiwan. But is the controversy overshadowing the possibility that he could be right? This week, Mark Leonard welcomes two ECFR colleagues: director of the Wider Europe programme and former French diplomat, Marie Dumoulin, and head of the Paris office and expert in French and US foreign policy, Célia Belin. . What explains Macron’s way of thinking and is there a domestic context to his comments? And what do the strong reactions say about how Europeans view strategic autonomy in the context of the war in Ukraine? This podcast was recorded on 17 April 2023. Bookshelf: The Cat and the General by Nino Haratischwili Living with our Dead by Delphine Horvilleur