The gold leaf rooms of the Luxembourg Palace of Paris attended countless moving oratory moments during the about 200 years when he welcomed French senators and other parliamentarians, but the time that stands out from the last time belongs to Claude Malhuret and his incendiary appearance of the American President Donald Trump.
Malhuret, a 75 -year -old doctor and lawyer who formerly directed Doctors Without Borders, made the headlines around the world with a eight -minute speech This has been translated and accumulated tens of millions of views on social networks.
This has eviscerated the American president, calling him “traitor” in the west and a threat to European security.
“Trump’s message is that it is useless to be his ally because he will not defend you,” exploded Malhuert from the ornate room. “It will impose higher prices for you than its enemies and threaten to grasp your territories.”
“Europe is alone,” he said by calling on the continent to accelerate military aid to Ukraine to help him repel the invasion of Russia and quickly build the armies of Europe to compensate for Trump’s disinterest.
During the weeks following that the developments of speeches, soldiers and security on the continent have evolved at a dizzying pace. And although Malhuret’s voice is only one of the many arguments of such arguments, he told CBC News that he comforts himself that his words could have helped to motivate the greatest rearmament program that Europe has seen for decades.
“Europeans emerge from denial,” he told CBC News in a recent interview in Luxembourg Palace.
“The message for the French people [is] very simple. We will probably have to defend ourselves. And the second message is that the Atlantic Alliance is in great danger, “he said.
Earlier this week, Trump – once again – falsely accused Ukraine of having sparked war with Russia and continued to insist that President Vladimir Putin wants peace even though Russia’s bombing of Ukrainian cities has increased.
First step
While European leaders continue to push to change the mind of Trump, they also took major measures to rearm.
The European Union says it plans To immediately raise 150 billion euros (236 billion CDN dollars) for collective defense. In addition, many countries have announced their own measures.
The European Union is considering an aid plan of more than $ 1 million for Ukraine and increases defense spending after the suspension of military aid by US President Donald Trump to the concerns fueled by the American president can no longer rely on American protection against Russian assault.
Poland said he plans to create a half-million soldiers’ army.
France Said he intends to build a new generation of aircraft carriers and has started to speak of possibly extending his nuclear umbrella compared to other countries.
Germany has released hundreds of billion euros for new infrastructure, a large part of which could be channeled towards the defense.
And Great Britain, More in the European Union but always eager to demonstrate wider leadership, increases defense expenses to 2.5% of GDP, the highest increase in this type in four decades.
Large gaps
Despite the burst of announcements, a new report highlights the reality of the difficulty for European countries to wear from US military power and technology – and do it quickly.
Brussels base report Bruegel Think Tank emphasizes that there are immense gaps in the defense production capacities which must be overcome.
It is notably said that Europe suffers from a shortage of advanced defense technologies.
For example, while the United States has increased mass production of its fifth generation F-35 fighter, European factories still produce European plans of fourth generation.
It also indicates that national rivalries undermine the capacity of Europe to mass produce higher quality systems.
While the United States focuses on its energies on the production of a single main battle reservoir (the M1 Abrams), Europe produces seven, each country favoring their own model product at home.
One of the authors of the report declared to CBC News “the nationalism of supply” or promoting the products produced on their domestic markets, retains the rearmatory project of Europe.
“Step 1 is that we have to use the economies of scale of the huge European market,” said Armin Steinbach, a non -resident scholarship holder in Bruegel.
“This helps increase production in a much more efficient and less expensive way.”
With the western alliance eroding under the American president Donald Trump, could the support of the defense of Canada move to Europe? As Evan Dyer of the CBC explains, the country’s underwater army does not offer a lot of presence of the troops, but it has other things that Europe needs.
The Steinbach group offers a new Defense pan -European fund – the “European defense mechanism” – to facilitate joint purchases.
In theory, he says that non -European countries, including Canada, could contribute to the fund and also benefit by potentially collaborating hundreds of billions of new military projects.
“We are aware that Canada is a country that is also in a moment of reorientation, given what is going on in the United States,” said Steinbach.
European Defense Ministers considered Bruegel’s proposal for the first time last week, calling a good starting point.
French optimism
During a recent trip to France, CBC News spoke with several senior European officials engaged in the rearmament effort which remains optimistic that they can execute the difficult pivot on the necessary defense purchases.
“What we want to build is a European Union that relies on itself concerning its security,” said former French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal to CBC News.
Attal was the Prime Minister for nine months from January to September 2024, before his Renaissance party lost power after President Emmanuel Macron called an early election to try to repel a wave of the extreme right.
There remains an elected member of the Parliament of France and there are generalized speculations according to which he could defend the presidency in 2027.
“Our vision is to invest much more in our national defense budgets, to buy European and European defense industries and to build a kind of European compass concerning our defense,” he said.
Svenja Hahn, a German member of the European Parliament representing the left -wing Democratic Party, said that she thought that the security crisis posed by Trump and Putin will help concentrate the mind over the collective challenges.
“If we do not want to be invaded by the intimidators of the world, we must really become a third superpower [after China and the U.S.]”She told CBC News at a forum in Paris.
Difficult timing
While new fighter planes, tanks and sophisticated anti -missile defense systems can take many years – even decades – to develop and produce, Europe can be able to progress more quickly in defenses in other areas, including drones.
“This is an enormous priority,” said Rafael Loss, a member of the European Council for Foreign Relations in Berlin.
“Ukrainians show that you can have a large production base without necessarily extended production times.”
He also said that the permanent armies of most European nations at the moment are too small, but they can be reinforced by recruitment and training relatively quickly.
Although Bruegel’s report does not specifically fix a deadline for Europe to accelerate its own rearmament, the loss claims that planners are probably considering several key deadlines.
“One is with the [duration] of the Trump presidency; The other is Vladimir Putin’s lifespan, “he told CBC News.
In other words, he says that there is an imperative to reorganize the armies and quickly create new weapons, because Trump has another three and a half years in his mandate. And at the same time, Putin, 72 years old, can also be inclined to accelerate her ambitions to expand the territory of Russia by taking control of the neighboring Baltic nations during his lifetime.
The loss says that the other great determinant over the time Europe has to rearrange is the result of the war in Ukraine.
“I think that overcoming Russia in Ukraine would minimize the risk of Russian climbing against European countries.”
