Leadership Quote by Emmanuel Macron

A line like this lands less as policy than as a diagnosis: Europe has been living on strategic credit, and the bill is coming due. Macron’s phrasing - “can no longer afford” - isn’t technocratic; it’s moral and economic at once, implying that dependence isn’t just risky, it’s irresponsible. “Others” is the tell. He doesn’t name the United States, but everyone hears it. The euphemism lets him criticize a protector without picking a fight, a classic Macron move: assert autonomy while keeping the alliance architecture intact.

The context is a decade of rude awakenings: Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, the whiplash of Trump-era NATO skepticism, energy coercion, and a Europe that discovered supply chains can be weapons. Security and defence are paired to widen the indictment. “Security” gestures toward cyber, energy, borders, disinformation; “defence” points to the hard stuff Europe has underfunded for generations while enjoying the American umbrella. It’s a call to treat geopolitics as a permanent condition, not an occasional crisis.

The subtext also runs inward. Macron is speaking to European publics who like the idea of sovereignty more than the costs it implies: higher defence spending, industrial coordination, shared procurement, and the political pain of deciding who commands what. He’s nudging Europe from being a market with values to being a power with capabilities. And he’s betting that fear - not idealism - is the only persuasive engine left.