Emmanuel Macron at the European Council in Brussels, March 19, 2026. JEANNE ACCORSINI/SIPA FOR LE MONDE
Emmanuel Macron arrived in Tokyo on Tuesday, March 31, to begin a visit to Japan and South Korea, both unsettled by the war currently shaking the Middle East. The Elysée acknowledged that the crisis would be "one of the main topics of discussion and a major area of convergence" between the French president and Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, as well as his South Korean counterpart, Lee Jae-myung. France shared "the same vision of the necessity of diplomacy to find a way out of this crisis."
Macron's trip, organized in anticipation of the G7 summit in the eastern France city of Evian in June – where both Japanese and South Korean leaders will attend – comes as the war led by the United States and Israel against Iran forced Washington's two main allies in Northeast Asia to rethink their security policies. Their dependency on the US, coupled with a growing alignment with NATO amid rising tensions in the Indo-Pacific, increased the risk they could be drawn into conflicts they do not wish to join – as is the case with Iran – or face blackmail from Washington threatening to withdraw its protection. That risk has prompted both countries to seek greater strategic autonomy.
