Macron's Muscle-Flexing Will Make Mediterranean Tensions Worse
France is trying to intervene in the conflict between Turkey and Greece. It's unlikely to go well.
Let me weigh in.
Photographer: Antoine Gyori/Corbis News
As if the waters of the Eastern Mediterranean weren’t turbulent enough, Emmanuel Macron has decided to give them another vigorous stir. France, he says, will increase its military presence there to “monitor the situation in the region and mark its determination to uphold international law.”
The “situation” is the face-off between Turkey and Greece over territorial and hydrocarbon-exploration rights. Things turned tense this week when President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ended a brief pause in Turkish exploration efforts in waters contested by the Greeks. For good measure, Ankara launched naval exercises off the Greek islands of Rhodes and Kastellorizo.