European unity over Ukraine faces a French test

Russia’s attack on Ukraine was ostensibly governed by national security considerations. Although the complications of having a Nato-friendly country on its borders cannot be brushed aside, the war has been a public relations disaster for President Vladimir Putin. As tales of Russian excesses resonate around the world, there is an outpouring of sympathy for the doughty Ukrainians who have held the Russian army at bay. Even countries, such as India, who have kept their links with Moscow intact on the plea of national self-interests, have had to concede that Putin’s aggression was unfortunate.
A consequence of the outrage over the Ukraine war is the revival of ideological polarisation in Europe. The idea of western democracies being ranged against an autocratic Russia has taken hold in the popular (or at least the media) imagination. In the process, institutions such as Nato — whose long-term efficacy had appeared distinctly shaky following the strategic convulsions in the US — and the European Union, which too had been confronted with existential challenges after Brexit, have been reinvigorated. Indeed, the notion of the ‘West’, as the democratic upholder of the enlightenment tradition has been aggressively asserted and presented as an alternative to the dark forces. In many ways, it seems like the Cold War 2.0.
The danger of a bird’s eye view is that it often conceals internal fissures on both sides of the divide. The Ukraine crisis and the compassionate handling of the ensuing refugee crisis—not least by countries that had earlier been resolutely opposed to the accommodation of migrants from West Asia and North Africa—has conveyed an impression that the member-states, and particularly ordinary citizens, have been nudged into accepting the lofty universal ideals that define the self-image of the EU. This, however, would be an over-simplification and the fissures that led to the British withdrawal are still unresolved.