Its an old ruse to deploy foreign policy for domestic purposes. France has a long history in that vein. General de Gaulle was adept at using popular domestic anti-Americanism on the world stage to embarrass pro-Nato political forces at home; François Mitterrand exploited the early 1980s Euromissile crisis with the Soviet Union to humiliate and isolate the French Communist party. Emmanuel Macron’s startling declaration that the West should not rule out putting troops on the ground in Ukraine is less a Damascene conversion than a strategy to stymy the Rassemblement National’s runaway 10 point poll lead for June’s EU elections.

Macron has doubled down on his new-found international bellicosity by stating that there were ‘no limits’ to French support for Kiev

A charitable soul might characterise President Macron’s support for Ukraine over the last two years as patchy. Whereas the US and Britain were supporting Ukraine before the Russian invasion, Macron refused even to accept Anglo-American intelligence that an invasion would take place, then blaming France’s director of military intelligence, whom he duly sacked. There followed the misguided and fruitless ‘negotiations’ with Putin and numerous declarations that France was avoiding escalation by denying Ukraine tanks or long-range artillery. This was interspersed with repeated injunctions not to ‘humiliate’ Russia. The upshot is that French military support for Ukraine is ranked around 15th, way behind the USA, Germany and the UK, according to the respected German Kiel Institute.

So why has President Macron suddenly swerved to paint himself as the West’s champion of support for Ukraine? There are three reasons. First, to fill the vacuum left by both the US and the UK’s leaders’ absorption with forthcoming elections. Second, to revert to his old ideal of melding a European defence community as platform for the European elections. Finally, and most importantly, to embarrass the Rassemblement National in the European elections, not to mention their predicted victory in the 2027 presidentials.

In his 2017 presidential victory speech, Emmanuel Macron publicly committed to eliminating the reasons why nearly 11 million votes were cast for the Rassemblement National. Five years later that number had risen to 13.3 million or 40 per cent of voters. Macron’s boast has failed. There is much to suggest that the President’s late conversion to support for Ukraine and his now war-mongering anti-Putinism is merely for domestic reasons to isolate the pro-Russian RN and France Insoumise before the EU elections in June.

The RN leads Macron on every count of voter concerns: immigration, law and order, cost of living, national identity, EU reform. Except for one: Ukraine. For the moment a majority of French opinion backs support for Kiev. And Macron wishes to flush out the RN by using that old revolutionary tactic of painting it asle parti de l’étranger – a fifth column for Putin’s Russia.

Here he has some justification. Until it recently paid off its loan, the RN was beholden to a Russian-Czech bank. ‘You are speaking to your banker when you speak about Russia’, Macron goaded Marine Le Pen in 2022. All through that year Marine Le Pen publicly called for the lifting of sanctions against Russia which, she claimed, would have ‘cataclysmic consequences for the cost of living for the French’. Marine Le Pen’s 2022 manifesto proposed a Franco-Russian alliance.

Things came to a head in parliament last month; Marine Le Pen fell into the trap with a question to the Prime Minister criticising Macron’s troops-to-Ukraine quip. Gabriel Attal retorted acidly: ‘Madame Le Pen, you were defending a military alliance with Russia only two years ago.’ And then to add: ‘There is reason to ask whether Vladimir Putin’s troops are not already in our country. I am talking about you and your troops Mme Le Pen’.

Since then Macron has doubled down on his new-found international bellicosity by stating that there were ‘no limits’ to French support for Kiev. His strategy continues to unfold. A parliamentary vote is scheduled next week on the new Franco-Ukrainian security pact. While there is no constitutional need to seek parliamentary approval for something in the President’s purview, it is designed to flush out the RN.

Macron’s motive for this sabre-rattling is fear of abject humiliation at the European elections, when the EU is the only area on which the President has unambiguously nailed his colours over the last seven years. Losing to the RN would be doubly bitter.

But Macron should beware using inflammatory international language to fight domestic battles. His alter ego, the equally young French president turned emperor, Napoléon III, calculated on using a diplomatic incident in 1870 to garner domestic support by humiliating Prussia. A worse outcome could not have been countenanced.