If you are a foreign correspondent, it is generally accepted that you spend a lot of time abroad. It is somewhat in the cards. As head of state or government, on the other hand, trips abroad are immediately more complicated. There is always a place you could have been instead: Home. Homeland, this mythical place where problems pile up, where electricity is expensive and where voters live. This became clear to me when I had to cover Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre’s visit to Paris at the beginning of December last year. Støre was to meet both European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and French President Emmanuel Macron for dinner at the Elysée Palace. And to make it clear right away: Dinner at Macron’s is no low-key weekday dinner arrangement, even when it happens in the middle of the week. There is very little that reminds us of Thorvald Stoltenberg’s legendary breakfast meetings, where he invited top foreign politicians for coffee and slices of bread at the rough wooden table at home in the kitchen. Admittedly, he also served croissants, which at the time were a bit French and cheesy, even at Frogner where Stoltenberg lived, but we’ll take that for granted. WEEKDAY DINNER: Everything ready before the guests arrive. Photo: Simen Ekern Postponed dinner Where was I? Yes, in the Elysée Palace. That is, I stood by the steps outside the entrance, along with a handful of journalists, plus a dozen or so handsomely uniformed guards, who had lined up to welcome the foreign guests. Outside the castle yard, the entire quarter was cordoned off with fences and police officers. Von der Leyen came first. The host, Macron, warmly welcomed her out there on the steps. But where did Støre become? One thing was the December cold in Paris, which made it a little difficult to wait. But, as usual, I thought primarily of my home country’s honor, of course: Can a Norwegian prime minister really be late for the French president? Is it inside? It was the plane’s fault, we understood. And Macron seemed just as cheerful, when he came out on the stairs again together with von der Leyen after half an hour. Støre’s black car arrived, finally. BONSOIR: Støre is warmly welcomed by Von der Leyen and Macron Photo: Simen Ekern “Which language should we take, is French okay with you?”, von der Leyen asked the belated Norwegian guest. Before Støre could answer, Macron took the floor: “He speaks very good French, he even studied here!” It was meant as a nice compliment. But as we in Norway know, knowing French is ridiculous and far from reality. That in itself is enough to give Norwegian caricaturists inspiration for several years in a row. In Norway, we speak French behind closed doors. In the interviews afterwards, we talked about high gas prices, and about the war in Ukraine, in good Norwegian. Bombs and electricity bills “They have an extremely demanding situation”, said Støre. “They are being bombed from the air.” And that’s how it is in Ukraine. In my inbox afterwards, however, I found angry e-mails from people who thought there were other demanding situations Støre should deal with instead. What about the “totally killing economic situation that hundreds of thousands of Norwegians now find themselves in, due to electricity and energy prices”, asked one. What about “his own more and more pressed people”? It looks comfortable for Støre down there in France, “on the European peaks of power”, pointed out another – better than “moving among ordinary people, the gray masses of Norway that he really can’t stand.” ALL IN PLACE: Ursula von der Leyen, Jonas Gahr Støre and Emmanuel Macron. Photo: Santiago Vergara TV2/Pool An e-mail from a Swede provided an interesting contrast: “Lucky that little Norway has oil and gas. Otherwise, you would never have been allowed to sit at the set tables, but ate brown cheese and drank thawed milk at the kitchen counter in Oslo,” the person wrote. But Swedish is really a kind of French dialect, they say trottoir instead of pavement and armchair instead of armchair. For Swedes, French is something great, which it is a little annoying that Norwegians master. It will obviously be wrong anyway, that a Norwegian prime minister is in France. REBELLION: Hundreds of thousands of French people have taken to the streets to protest in recent weeks Photo: Simen Ekern French dilemmas If it can be any kind of consolation for Støre: It is not easier to be French. So, you don’t get criticized for speaking French in France. But you are criticized for driving around abroad. Look at Emmanuel Macron in recent weeks: on January 19, streets and squares across France were boiling. Somewhere between one and two million people demonstrated against Emmanuel Macron’s big project: a pension reform. The retirement age is to be raised from 62 to 64, and people I met in the streets were so angry that the Støre criticism in my inbox seemed like little love letters in comparison. They called him “a traitor.” “Brutal”. And “arrogant and detached from reality”. DISSATISFIED WITH MACRON: Celestine Maka demonstrates against the pension reform Photo: Simen Ekern ”Someday he has to open his ears and listen to the people”, protester Celestine told me. But where was Macron when the people called him? With the world as home ground In the National Museum of Art in Barcelona. Not really to show off or run away, I think. He was there to sign a pact of friendship and cooperation with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchéz. Friendship and cooperation are important for a country’s leader, but Macron’s compatriots wanted him closer to the grassroots in France, with his head bowed and his ear turned down to ordinary people. STRUGGLE: Struggle until the revolution – and beyond! Photo: Simen Ekern The dislike for Macron is not primarily due to the fact that he is abroad. But it is often claimed that the French president has tried to leave the most complicated domestic political entanglements to his prime minister, and rather concentrate on bigger issues: the whole world. After the slightly challenging election victory last spring, he has been to Algeria, the Vatican City, Egypt, to summits in Asia, to Kyiv and to Washington. He has spoken about food security in Africa, about the state of the world’s oceans, about multilateralism in Asia. And about Ukraine, of course, where his early attempts at mediation with Vladimir Putin even became the subject of an extremely interesting documentary, which can still be seen on news. “He is everywhere, but he is mostly elsewhere,” as an anonymous French minister put it before Christmas. “He is hyperactive abroad, but struggles at home,” wrote Le Monde’s chief commentator recently. DEVIL: Macron is struggling with his image at home. Photo: ALAIN JOCARD / AFP A French researcher Politico interviewed before Christmas compares it all to Bill Clinton’s second term, heavily marked by the Monica Lewinsky scandal: “He turned instead to the international scene, trying to solve issues in the Balkans, The Middle East and China”. Home best There are lots of such examples, and what they all have in common is that they are most often sarcastic. Peace in the Balkans, you sort of. Relations with China, hihi. Peace in Europe, hehe. One can understand that it may seem a bit grandiose. At the same time, in the name of justice, the world is full of heads of state who stay mostly at home, and it is not a given that all would do so sharply in democratic elections either in Norway or France. ON TRAVEL: Emmanuel Macron met Xi Jinping in Bali in November Photo: LUDOVIC MARIN / AFP Skepticism about abroad is strong among many. Victor Orbán in Hungary, for example, has given speeches in which he has shown some skepticism both towards Hungarian students studying abroad and towards his own diplomats. They have stayed abroad quite a bit, namely. Can we be sure that they have not forgotten their own country’s interests? Here we are not yet in Norway, I think. Diplomats, students – and foreign correspondents – can be abroad. And as a consolation for heads of state and government with a penchant for travel, one can point to a large international opinion poll from this summer, in which it emerged that Emmanuel Macron was the head of state people around the world had the most confidence in when it came to to do the right thing for world politics. It’s not the same as being loved at home, of course, but the world is, after all, an important place too.
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When is it okay for a prime minister to be abroad? – news Urix – Foreign news and documentaries
