France has been cut out of the process of resolving the situation in Ukraine. Emmanuel Macron has rendered France inaudible and invisible. This indicates a significant decline in French diplomacy on the international stage.
From Yalta in 1945 to Riyadh in 2025, including discussions on Iran’s nuclear program, the Sahel and Israeli-Palestinian crises, and the recent Russian-American negotiations on Ukraine, France has increasingly been conspicuous by its absence from major geopolitical events. Once an essential pillar of international relations, it now appears marginalized – even sidelined – in the discussions that shape the global balance. This phenomenon is no mere coincidence. It is part of a structural weakening of French diplomacy, caught between the erosion of its traditional influence and the assertion of new powers in a multipolar world. What are the causes of this gradual decline? Does France still have the means to reverse this trajectory? This article answers these questions sociometrically.
Incidentally, rich in its geopolitical significance and its importance in establishing historical truth, the Yalta Conference of February 1945 redefined the post-World War II world order. The leaders of the time, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin, reshaped the geopolitical balance, sidelining France and its representative, Charles de Gaulle, in a context of national fragility following the defeat of 1940. Despite de Gaulle’s stature as a figure of the Resistance and Free France, tensions with Allied leaders and the lack of recognition of his provisional government led to his exclusion from Yalta. This moment marked the sidelining of France in crucial international decisions, despite Churchill’s attempts to confer influence on it, notably through an occupation zone in Germany and a seat on the UN Security Council. In 2025, history repeats itself with Emmanuel Macron sidelined from the Riyadh talks regarding Ukraine, where the United States and Russia are redrawing the lines of a new world order. With Riyadh’s rise as a diplomatic hub and the emergence of new actors such as China, France struggles to assert its influence, caught between Europe’s desire for strategic autonomy and a multipolar world making major decisions without it. These two historical and real-life episodes, 80 years apart, highlight a persistent challenge for French diplomacy: maintaining an influential position in international negotiations. Thus, between aspirations and marginalization, France navigates internal and external challenges that limit its impact on global balances.
Yalta (1945), the first humiliation symbolizing an ancient decline
Held from 4 to 11 February 1945 in the Livadia Palace in Crimea, the Yalta Conference represents a key moment in the history of post-World War II international relations. It illustrates a period of diplomatic humiliation for France and accelerates its decline, which began well before the Second World War. Excluded from the strategic negotiations that were redefining the post-war world and weakened by both its military defeat in 1940 and the tarnished image of the Vichy regime, it was relegated to the role of spectator. Liberated by the Red Army and African soldiers, it did not obtain a seat alongside the Big Three (Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin) who were redrawing the international balance at the conference, despite the efforts of General de Gaulle (then Churchill’s proxy). This ouster led to France’s marginalization in crucial post-conflict decisions, including the division of Germany into occupation zones, the redrawing of European borders, and the establishment of East-West spheres of influence. Even its place on the UN Security Council was the result of a last-minute intervention, mainly supported by Churchill, who was afraid of competing with the two superpowers. While in a three-way relationship, each strives to be on good terms with the other two, Churchill struggled to maintain good relations with Stalin and Roosevelt. Yalta thus highlighted a profound weakening of France’s diplomatic role, resulting from the erosion of its power that had begun since the First World War. Despite its victory in 1918, human and economic losses undermined its international preeminence, while the rise of the United States and the Soviet Union, as well as internal crises, contributed to its decline. This marginalization, experienced as a betrayal by the French elite, has had a lasting impact on the country’s diplomacy. As European deconstruction moves to the forefront, the shadow of Yalta continues to weigh on France’s international positioning, recalling a time when it struggled to regain its stature in a world that had reorganized itself without it.
Riyadh (2025), France ignored in the Russian-Ukrainian and Israeli-Palestinian crises
From the 2023 Arab-Islamic summit on Gaza to the 2025 negotiations on the Ukrainian conflict, the Riyadh meetings represented a tipping point that underscored the erosion of France’s position on the international stage. During these highly diplomatic meetings, key talks took place regarding the Russo-Ukrainian crisis and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but France found itself sidelined from strategic exchanges. This highlighted a notable decline in its diplomatic influence. In the Russo-Ukrainian context, for example, direct dialogue between the United States and Russia has relegated Europe, and France in particular, to a lesser supporting role. Despite its sadly proclaimed support for Ukraine since 2022, France has not been recognized as a major interlocutor in the resolution of this conflict, raising concerns about its impact on global security issues. At the same time, it has been supplanted in negotiations on the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, where Saudi Arabia has assumed a leading diplomatic role, making normalization with Israel conditional on progress for the Palestinian cause. France, which historically had significant influence on this issue, was not asked to play a mediating role, which reflects a worrying decline in the regional dynamics of the Middle East. This double marginalization during the Riyadh meetings reveals a structural weakening of French diplomacy, weakened both by internal tensions and by a loss of preeminence in international bodies. This trend, if it continues, could reduce France to a role of figurehead in the global geopolitical recomposition, which constitutes a warning signal for a country that has always claimed a central place in the management of international affairs.
Strategic retreat in Europe, Africa and the Indo-Pacific
In the current geopolitical context, France faces a major challenge: countering its strategic weakening and growing marginalization on the international stage. In Europe, despite its efforts to promote strategic autonomy, it is struggling to assert its leadership in the face of Germany’s economic and diplomatic rise. French initiatives are struggling to resonate with European partners, thus highlighting an isolation that is detrimental to its influence within the European Union. In Africa, its historical presence is being called into question, with military operations such as Barkhane (the logical continuation of Takuba and Serval) failing to stabilize the Sahel and the expulsion of its military forces from countries such as Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, and Chad, to name just a few. This situation paves the way for other powers such as Russia and China, which are redefining the balance of power through strategic and mutually beneficial investments, relegating France to a minor role. In the Indo-Pacific region, the resounding failure of the submarine contract with Australia symbolizes the vulnerability of French strategy. Despite a stated desire to establish itself as a key player, France finds itself eclipsed by the United States and China, whose rivalries capture global attention. Its attempts to strengthen bilateral partnerships, particularly with India and Japan, seem insufficient in any respect to challenge the preeminence of these superpowers. Faced with a multipolar world where key decisions are made without it, Macron’s France is struggling to overcome its increasingly peripheral position. Once a dominant power – shaped by its role as a free rider within the European Union – it now lacks all the economic and diplomatic levers to meet the challenge of preserving its role and dispelling doubts about its ability to once again become a central player in contemporary geopolitical dynamics.
It can be said that the global landscape is being reshaped. History has already delivered its verdict: De Gaulle, sidelined at Yalta in 1945 during the structuring of the power triangle between Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill, finds an echo in Macron, excluded from the Riyadh negotiations in 2025, where the new geopolitical balances are taking shape.
Mohamed Lamine KABA, Expert in Geopolitics of Governance and Regional Integration, Institute of Governance, Humanities and Social Sciences, Pan-African University
