President Emmanuel Macron has arrived in Bahrain during his tour of the Gulf region, as France continues to reel from a wave of violent protests. The French leader is hoping to strengthen defence ties and secure oil and gas supplies amid major disruption to global fuel shipments arising from the US-Israel war on Iran. He has already visited Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as part of his three-day trip.
On the first day of Macron’s trip, France and Kuwait signed eight agreements and cooperation documents covering defence, artificial intelligence, investment and more. Macron then met UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan in Abu Dhabi on Monday. The two leaders reaffirmed their commitment to advancing cooperation in energy, advanced technology and artificial intelligence (AI).
According to the French Foreign Ministry, the UAE is France’s biggest importer in the Gulf, with bilateral trade standing at 10.8 billion euros ($12.1bn) in 2025. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) [PDF], France supplied 18 percent of the UAE’s arms and defence imports in 2025 – the second highest after the United States, at 42 percent. Andreas Krieg, a senior lecturer at King’s College London’s School of Security Studies, explained that Macron’s visit to the region is “symptomatic of a much larger geopolitical transformation”.
Both have become excessively dependent on American security decisions, and both are discovering that this dependence carries substantial economic and political costs.” Most pressing for Macron is finding solutions for strife at home. France has been engulfed in protests and violence over a proposed government budget seeking tens of millions of euros in savings to public spending. Protesters angry about the crumbling state of French schools and planned pay freezes for public-sector workers have taken to the streets in increasingly violent protests, and authorities have imposed curfews in some cities.
More than half a million people gathered across France on Saturday as protesters demanded better education infrastructure and government steps to address the cost-of-living crisis. During weeks of protests, more than 2,500 people have been arrested, and demonstrations have descended into looting and arson in numerous locations. A major issue is the spike in energy prices affecting all of Europe – much of it as a result of the Iran war – which has also fuelled growing public anger in France.
Disruptions to the supply of refined oil products such as petrol and diesel caused by the conflict in the Strait of Hormuz have caused up to 20 percent of French petrol stations to run out of both at various times since the conflict began. Macron’s visit to the Gulf, accompanied by senior executives from France’s two biggest energy groups, TotalEnergies and Engie, comes as oil prices hover above $100 a barrel. What France needs most urgently, therefore, is new suppliers.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
