Europe Is Done Bowing and Scraping to Trump

Mr. Schmemann, an Opinion writer, is a former Moscow bureau chief of The Times.

“When we’re serious, we don’t every day say the opposite of what we said the day before,” President Emmanuel Macron of France said last week, adding, cuttingly: “And, maybe, one shouldn’t speak every day.”

It sounded like a grown-up speaking down to an obstreperous child, and that was probably what the French president intended. The target of his admonition was, of course, Donald Trump. Mr. Macron was speaking shortly after the American president had issued another boorish rant that included rude comments about the French president and his wife.

Mr. Macron is one of the few European leaders who have dealt with Mr. Trump almost from the first day of his first term. His transition from initial deference and........

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