SUMMARY

After his speech at the 2022 United Nations General Assembly, President Macron gave an interview on CNN. Asked about Iran, Emmanuel Macron said France knows “it’s a very important topic for the US domestically” and “for the security of the whole region”. “I do believe that for Iran, it could be a reasonable and a positive deal, if they accept, precisely, to progressively normalize the situation” he said. The President stated that giving the Iranians have “an increasing pressure at home” and that they face a complex geopolitical context, “having a deal could be a good option” for them. He ensured that regional security is France’s “top priority”. Then, E. Macron gave three main explanations of what he says is a crisis of “liberal democracies”. First, he diagnosed a “crisis of middle classes” feeling weakened by the inherent destabilizations of “open societies”. Second, the development of social media, “for the best and the worst” played a role. While it has undisputable advantages, like information and data sharing, it’s also a “pandora box for fake news” and a “new relativism”, “which is a killer of our democracies because breaking the relationship to truth and science”, the President added. Democracies also face a “big challenge in terms of efficiency”, sometimes pushing people to search for solutions at the extreme of the political spectrum. “I worry about all of us” said E. Macron of democracies, stressing that “we have to reinvent something, probably”.