In the autumn of 2021, France reached across the Atlantic not with ceremony but with intention — Emmanuel Macron sought a genuine, unhurried meeting with Justin Trudeau to reckon with the fractures and unfinished promises between two allied nations. The AUKUS security pact had wounded Paris, and Macron wanted to understand where Canada stood amid the shifting geometries of Western power. Behind the diplomatic request lay something older and more patient: a bilateral council born in 2018, stalled by pandemic, waiting to be revived.
Macron seeks urgent bilateral talks with Trudeau on security, China, climate
He wants to know where Trudeau stands on AUKUS
Mark
Why does Macron care so much about getting face time with Trudeau? They're both Western leaders—don't they see each other all the time at summits?
Mimi
They do, but Macron is signaling that he wants something different. A summit is choreographed, crowded, full of other business. He's asking for space to have a real conversation.
Luke
Right, but we should be careful here. The source is Rispal, France's ambassador. She's making the case for why this meeting matters. That's her job. We don't actually know if Trudeau felt the same urgency.
Mark
Fair point. So what's really bothering Macron?
Mimi
Two things, it seems. First, AUKUS—he feels excluded and betrayed. Second, there's work on democracy and climate that got frozen by the pandemic and never restarted.
Luke
On AUKUS, though—Trudeau already said publicly that Canada wasn't interested in nuclear submarines anyway. So is Macron actually worried about Canada's position, or is he just venting about the Americans and British?
Mark
That's a good question. What does the source actually tell us about what Macron wants to hear from Trudeau?
Mimi
It says Macron wants to hear Trudeau's views on the alliance. That's pretty open-ended. It could mean he wants reassurance, or he wants to understand Canada's thinking, or both.
Luke
Exactly. The source doesn't give us Macron's actual words or a detailed read-out of what he's hoping to accomplish. We know he wants the meeting and roughly why, but the specifics are thin.
Mark
What about the Franco-Canadian Council that was supposed to meet every two years?
Mimi
It was established in 2018 as a way to formalize cooperation on democracy, gender equality, and climate. But it never actually met after that first agreement, because of COVID.
Luke
And we don't know if either side was pushing hard to restart it before Macron asked for this meeting, or if it just quietly died. The source doesn't say.
Mark
So what's the real story here?
Mimi
France is trying to reassert itself in a world where it feels sidelined. AUKUS was a shock, and Macron wants to make sure Canada isn't drifting away from France's orbit.
Luke
That's interpretation, though. What we actually know is that France's ambassador said Macron wants a meeting to discuss AUKUS, stalled bilateral work, and unfinished business. Whether that adds up to France feeling sidelined—that's a reader's conclusion, not a fact in the reporting.
Le Pouls
- France's fury over AUKUS — a submarine deal that cut Paris out of a major defence arrangement with Australia — has not cooled, and Macron wants answers from an ally who stayed silent.
- Trudeau's casual dismissal of Canada's own exclusion from the pact left Macron uncertain about where Ottawa truly stands on the new Indo-Pacific security order.
- A Franco-Canadian Council of Ministers, launched with ambition in 2018 to advance democracy, gender equality, and climate cooperation, has sat dormant for years — a symbol of good intentions overtaken by crisis.
- France's ambassador to Canada delivered the message plainly: Macron is not asking for a sideline handshake, but for real time and real conversation.
- The bilateral request signals France's determination to reassert its relevance as a major power and to rebuild the architecture of Western cooperation on its own terms.
In the autumn of 2021, France reached across the Atlantic not with ceremony but with intention — Emmanuel Macron sought a genuine, unhurried meeting with Justin Trudeau to reckon with the fractures and unfinished promises between two allied nations. The AUKUS security pact had wounded Paris, and Macron wanted to understand where Canada stood amid the shifting geometries of Western power. Behind the diplomatic request lay something older and more patient: a bilateral council born in 2018, stalled by pandemic, waiting to be revived.
Emmanuel Macron wanted more than a corridor exchange with Justin Trudeau. In early October 2021, France's ambassador to Canada, Kareen Rispal, made clear that the French president was seeking a dedicated bilateral meeting — not a rushed aside at some larger summit, but a proper conversation about the things weighing on France.
At the centre of Macron's concerns was AUKUS, the security alliance announced in September 2021 between the United States, Britain, and Australia. For France, the pact was a wound. Paris had been deep in negotiations to sell Australia nuclear-powered submarines when the deal was swept away by the new arrangement. Macron was furious at what he saw as a betrayal by close allies. Trudeau, meanwhile, had been relatively unbothered by Canada's own exclusion, suggesting the alliance was simply about submarine technology his country neither needed nor sought. Macron wanted to hear Trudeau's thinking directly.
There was also older, unfinished business. In June 2018, the two leaders had met in Ottawa ahead of the Charlevoix G7 and agreed to establish a Franco-Canadian Council of Ministers — a formal structure for deepening cooperation on democracy, gender equality, and climate. It was meant to meet every two years. It never convened. The pandemic had frozen bilateral diplomacy in place, and the council's ambitions had quietly gathered dust.
France was now signalling it wanted to restart. Macron sought to understand Canada's position on the shifting security landscape — the Indo-Pacific, China, the future of Western alliances — and to salvage what could still be built between the two countries. The request itself carried weight: a major power asking not for pageantry, but for genuine attention.
Emmanuel Macron wants to sit down with Justin Trudeau. Not at the edge of a summit, not for a quick bilateral on the sidelines while other leaders mill about. A real meeting, soon, with time to talk through the things that matter to France right now.
Kareen Rispal, France's ambassador to Canada, made this clear to The Canadian Press in early October 2021. Macron has unfinished business with Canada—work that started before the pandemic froze most international cooperation in place. But there's something more pressing on his mind: he wants to know where Trudeau stands on AUKUS, the security alliance announced the month before between the United States, Britain, and Australia.
The alliance stung France. Paris saw it as a betrayal by countries it considered allies, particularly the Americans and British. The deal was built around selling Australia nuclear-powered submarines, a major military commitment that locked out France, which had been negotiating its own submarine contract with Canberra. Macron was furious. Trudeau, for his part, had shrugged off Canada's exclusion, noting that the alliance was really about submarine technology and nuclear capability—neither of which Canada needed or wanted. But Macron wanted to hear directly from the Canadian prime minister what he actually thought about the whole affair.
There was also the matter of promises made and then abandoned. Three years earlier, in June 2018, Macron had come to Ottawa for a one-on-one with Trudeau ahead of the G7 summit in Charlevoix, Quebec. The two leaders had agreed to establish a Franco-Canadian Council of Ministers, a formal structure meant to deepen cooperation on democracy, gender equality, and climate action. The council was supposed to convene every two years. It never did. The pandemic had intervened, and the machinery of bilateral diplomacy had simply stopped.
Rispal was signaling that France wanted to restart. Macron wanted to talk about what had stalled, what could be salvaged, and what needed to be rebuilt. He also wanted to understand Canada's thinking on the geopolitical shifts happening around them—the new security architecture taking shape in the Indo-Pacific, the role of China, the future of Western alliance-building in a world that no longer felt stable or predictable.
The request itself was a statement. France, a permanent member of the UN Security Council and a major power in its own right, was asking Canada for dedicated attention. Not a photo op. Not a ceremonial exchange. A conversation between two leaders about the things that would shape the next decade of their countries' relationship.
Citations marquantes
Macron wants to hear Trudeau's views on the alliance formed last month between the United States, Britain and Australia— Kareen Rispal, France's ambassador to Canada
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