Emmanuel Macron declared that the year 2022 must be a turning point for Europe as France takes over the rotating presidency of the European Union.
In a New Year's Eve national address, the French president praised the role of the EU during the Covid 19 crisis and announced an ambitious agenda for the bloc that could also serve his domestic campaign for re-election.
He pledged to be a part of his campaign and he will be hoping it will serve him in the elections that take place in April, which comes around every 13 years for France.
Prominence on the international stage has always been a popular move for a French president.
Pierre Sellal, a former diplomat at the French mission to the EU, said that the French like nothing more than the image or impression of France being at the controls.
S Bastien Maillard, director of the Jacques Delors Institute, said Macron will have to face pressure to deliver after having ramped up expectations.
He can't get to the first round of the presidential election on April 10 without some results from the European presidency, Maillard said. That is a challenge for him, but it can also be a real opportunity. European leaders are expected to meet in Paris on 10 -- 11 March, which could be a chance for them to agree on a major reform of the bloc's budget rules.
Much will depend on Germany's new chancellor, Olaf Scholz, whose coalition government is seen as sceptical about budget reforms but supportive of Macron's agenda.
The French presidency is an important opportunity for us to strengthen Europe and make it fit to rise to tomorrow's challenges, said Annalena Baerbock, German foreign minister.
Sellal said France's partners would take a dim view of attempts to instrumentalise the presidency for electoral reasons. But opponents have already accused Macron of electioneering and said he should have delayed France's turn at the helm until after the elections.
It is a mistake. He is doing it for his own interests, not those of France, his rightwing rival Val rie P cresses from Les R publicains party said last month.
Eurosceptic opponents, such as far-right figures Marine Le Pen and ric Zemmour, will waste no opportunity to portray the whole exercise as meaningless.
It has been four and a half years since he was in power and he has nothing and done nothing in the European domain, apart from achieving a sort of submission to Germany in the name of the Franco-German couple, Le Pen told RMC radio in mid-December.