Macron and Putin hold first call in 3 years. Here’s what to know about their relationship

PARIS, France (AP) – Russian President Vladimir Putin and French President Emmanuel Macron have spoken in a phone call after a period of silence between the two leaders stretching almost three years, in a move that may mark a shift in a famously fraught relationship. Or not.

Both sides said Tuesday’s call – their first reported direct contact since September 2022 – focused on recent events in the Middle East. The two leaders also discussed ending Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, although there is no sign that any progress was made on the issue.

For Moscow, the call plays into its longtime narrative that the Western effort to isolate it over the war in Ukraine has largely failed.

A look at the relationship between Putin and Macron that veered from warm to stormy over the years:

Macron and Putin once enjoyed a good personal relationship.

The then newly elected French president first hosted Putin in 2017 at the sumptuous Palace of Versailles, west of Paris, where Putin expressed hope that among Macron and his team there would be “more people who understand us” – unlike the French president’s Socialist predecessor, Francois Hollande.

In 2021, when the Louis Vuitton Foundation exhibited the Morozov Collection – one of the world’s most important collections of Impressionist and Modern art masterpieces – the exhibition catalog featured a preface co-signed by Putin and Macron.

An Elysee presidential palace official previously told The Associated Press after one phone call that the two leaders addressed each other through interpreters with the familiar French word for “you” – “tu” – rather than the formal “vous.”

Macron may have hoped to leverage this relationship when he visited Moscow in February 2022, just weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine, in last-ditch efforts to prevent the war. Once Russia’s full-scale invasion began on Feb. 24, 2022, he was also one of the few European leaders to keep lines of communication with the Kremlin open.

In Macron’s last call to the Kremlin, in September 2022, the two men discussed the safety of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant and the possibility of shipping Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea.

None of these overtures, however, produced substantive progress.

Since then, Macron’s stance on Russia seems to have become harsher. He has become a strong supporter of stringent sanctions against Russia and pushed for more aid to be delivered to Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Macron has become the subject of ridicule in the Russian press, an attitude encouraged by Russian officials.

When images appeared in late May of Macron’s wife, Brigitte, pushing her husband away with both hands on his face before the couple disembarked from a plane, Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova wondered sarcastically whether the French first lady decided “to cheer up her husband with a gentle stroke on the cheek” and miscalculated “her strength.” (The Macrons downplayed the situation, saying that they were playfighting.)

Amid worsening Russia-France ties, new contact between Putin and Macron is noteworthy.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday that the French government had initiated the call, which ran for more than two hours.

Both governments said the conversation centered on Iran, rather than the more contentious issue of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In statements released after the call, both Paris and Moscow noted their respective countries’ responsibilities as members of the UN security council and the importance of a diplomatic solution to any further tensions.

Ukraine also featured in the two leaders’ conversation, but seemingly only highlighted the impasse that hung between both sides.

Macron pressed Russia to focus on the short-term actions and emphasized the urgent need for Russia to agree to an immediate ceasefire.

The Kremlin’s statement, however, put what Moscow perceives as the conflict’s long-term “root causes” front and center, reiterating claims that the Ukraine conflict is a consequence of Western countries’ decision to ignore Russia’s security interests.

As a result, in Moscow, reactions to the call have remained relatively cautious.

“Nothing lately has foreshadowed a warming in French-Russian relations. Perhaps this is an initial sign, or perhaps not,” Pavel Timofeev, a staff member at the Department for European Political Studies at Moscow’s Institute of World Economy and International Relations, told Russian news outlet RBC.

In France, the call received mixed reactions from those who believe in greater dialogue with Moscow, and those calling for the Kremlin’s continued isolation.

Tatiana Kastouéva-Jean, the director of the Russia/Eurasia Center at the French Institute of International Relations (IFRI), said France and Europe were in a position with “no winning options.”

“Either they leave the dialogue with Putin entirely to the Americans, risking marginalization and vulnerability to the volatility of Trump-era politics; or they reinitiate dialogue – as Emmanuel Macron just did – in the hope of having some influence,” she told Le Monde newspaper.

Nicolas Tenzer, an expert in international relations at the Center for European Policy Analysis, also stressed that there was no room for discussion between Macron and Putin.

“Talking to a radical enemy who seeks normalization gives them a narrative advantage and ultimately weakens us,” he said.