Leadership Quote by Jean-Pierre Raffarin

“We have come a long way in terms of foreign policy” is the kind of soft-edged triumphalism politicians reach for when the actual achievement is either too technical, too contested, or too fragile to name outright. Raffarin’s phrasing is deliberately noncommittal: “a long way” signals progress without specifying from what baseline, toward what destination, or by what metric. It’s a progress narrative shorn of receipts, designed to let supporters hear competence while giving opponents little to pin down.

The subtext is managerial reassurance. Foreign policy is where governments most crave the aura of steadiness, especially in a Europe where sovereignty is often shared, negotiated, and publicly performed. By choosing a collective “we,” Raffarin wraps the claim around institutions and alliances, not just a single cabinet or leader. That’s a classic move for a French politician operating in the post-Cold War, EU-deepening era: success is presented as national maturity, even when much of the machinery is multilateral and messy.

The line also works as a preemptive defense. “We’ve progressed” implicitly concedes earlier missteps without lingering on them, an elegant way to acknowledge criticism while declining to litigate it. It’s rhetoric suited to coalition diplomacy: vague enough to preserve unity, optimistic enough to project momentum, careful enough to avoid promising that the path ahead won’t be rough. In foreign policy, ambiguity isn’t a bug; it’s often the product.