Emmanuel Macron has delivered his starkest verdict yet on the transatlantic alliance, explicitly grouping the American president with the leaders of Russia and China as powers that are “dead against” Europe. Speaking in Athens, the French president declared that the United States can no longer be fully regarded as a dependable partner, warning that no country should consider Washington an ally on which it can rely without reservation. The remarks, made during a public discussion organised by the Greek daily Kathimerini, jolt a relationship already frayed by diverging strategies on trade, Iran and the broader architecture of European security. Macron’s language signals that the Élysée now views the strategic drift as structural rather than cyclical, a shift with profound implications for the continent’s defence posture.

Viewed from Paris, the presidency’s calculus rests on a conviction that American policy no longer factors in European interests. Macron argued that Europe must “act more effectively to strengthen our independence,” a theme that has animated his tenure and which he repeated as a call to wake up before his term expires next year. The message was sharpened by his refusal to accept Donald Trump’s characterisation of European defence as a burden transferred to Washington. Instead, the French leader insisted that the European Union’s ongoing investments in military capabilities answer a longstanding American demand for the continent to shoulder its own security – not to create a rival to NATO, but to build a more balanced alliance.

The backdrop in Athens added a concrete dimension to the rhetoric. Macron renewed the Franco-Greek strategic defence partnership, first inked in 2021, which includes a mutual assistance clause in the event of armed aggression. Standing beside the Greek prime minister, he offered an unambiguous guarantee: “Don’t even ask the question. Whatever happens, we will be there, at your side.” The pledge carries particular weight for a Mediterranean nation locked in recurring tensions with neighbouring Turkey, and it illustrates how France seeks to fashion bilateral defence ties into a model that might “inspire” the wider European project. For Greek officials, the renewal of the accord provides a layer of reassurance outside a NATO framework that Ankara also inhabits and occasionally tests.

From this vantage, the sequence of events looks markedly different. While Washington has long pushed for stronger European defence spending within NATO, Macron’s cultivation of autonomous capabilities – in concert with willing partners such as Greece – suggests a hedging strategy against an ally perceived as increasingly transactional. Analysts in London note that the French president is giving concrete form to what had often been rhetorical flourishes about European sovereignty, leveraging bilateral pacts where the EU’s consensus machinery moves too slowly. Moscow and Beijing, meanwhile, will read Macron’s public categorisation of Washington as an unreliable power as evidence of deeper fractures in the Western alliance, even if France simultaneously insists it does not wish to weaken NATO.

Looking ahead, the tension between burden-sharing and strategic autonomy will define Europe’s defence evolution. Macron’s Athens visit underscores that Paris is prepared to lead by example, yet the broader European response remains uneven. The risk is that a continent already seized by doubts about American reliability might fragment into competing circles of security cooperation rather than converging on a common posture. For Greece, the immediate dividend is a renewed French commitment in the eastern Mediterranean, but the longer-term question is whether such bilateral pledges can genuinely stabilise a neighbourhood where great-power competition is intensifying. With Macron entering his final stretch of power, the initiative he has launched is likely to outlast his presidency only if it transcends personality and becomes embedded in durable institutional habits – a prospect that remains, for now, uncertain.