Emmanuel Macron invited the leaders of French parties and presidential candidates not to the grand hall of the Élysée Palace, but to a secure crisis center below it. Intelligence chiefs briefed politicians on Russian hybrid threats, the war in Ukraine, the Middle East, and energy risks. The official purpose was to inform the political class. The political consequence is subtler: after such a briefing, it will be much harder for the next president of France to say that he was not warned.
On September 18, Emmanuel Macron gathered at the Élysée Palace the leaders of parliamentary political forces and a number of potential candidates for the 2027 presidential elections. Among the participants were Jordan Bardella, Gabriel Attal, Édouard Philippe, Bruno Retailleau, Olivier Faure, Raphaël Gluksman, and representatives of other political camps. The venue for the meeting was unusual: the new secure crisis center Vega in the underground part of the Élysée Palace, where meetings of the Defense Council are held, and secret-level information is discussed. According to the French press, this was the first time presidential candidates were invited there.
The heads of external intelligence DGSE, internal security DGSI, military intelligence DRM, the General Secretariat for Defense and National Security, and the General Directorate for Energy addressed the politicians. They officially presented the picture of two crises: Russia's war against Ukraine and the war in the Middle East, as well as their consequences for security, energy, and the daily lives of the French.
But the format of the meeting is no less important than its content. Macron effectively did something that happens rarely in French politics: opened part of the state's informational picture to people, one of whom may hold the keys to the Élysée Palace in a few months.
The Effect of the Secret Folder
The political power of a closed intelligence briefing lies not only in the secrets told during it. It changes the responsibility of those who hear them.
As long as an opposition politician is outside the system, he can claim that the government exaggerates threats, hides the true state of affairs, or uses Ukraine to justify new defense expenditures. After several hours alongside the heads of DGSE, DGSI, and military intelligence, such a position becomes politically more complicated. Now the opponent is not just criticizing Macron - he is doing so after being familiarized with the same closed information that the president uses.
The Élysée Palace itself offers a fairly transparent key to this logic. According to Le Monde, Macron decided to share the intelligence picture with presidential candidates so that his successor could not say in eight months: 'I did not know.'
This does not prove the existence of a plan to 'tie' the opposition or force it to support Macron's policy. Participants may see the same data and draw completely different political conclusions. For example, the communist Fabien Roussel stated after the briefing that he did not hear any fundamentally new information.
However, the informational asymmetry between the authorities and the opposition decreased after Vega. Along with it, the space for the argument 'we weren’t told' has also diminished.
Ukraine After Macron
This is especially important for France's foreign policy. Macron cannot run for a third consecutive presidential term in 2027. Therefore, an increasing part of his foreign policy legacy will depend no longer on him, but on the person who comes after him.
Ukraine is one of the most obvious risks of continuity here. French political forces differ in their views on the scale of military support for Kyiv, relations with Moscow, defense spending, and France's role in European security. Macron cannot prevent the future president from changing course. Similarly, a closed briefing does not create any legal obligation to continue the current policy.
However, it can change the political cost of such a shift.
After the meeting, Macron publicly stated that, according to the assessment of the French authorities, Russian hybrid threats against France and other European countries had intensified. He instructed the government to prepare an additional plan to protect critical infrastructure and defense industry facilities from drones and cyberattacks. France also reaffirmed its support for Ukraine and sanctions policy against Russia.
Moreover, the reaction of the French Rassemblement National was particularly noteworthy. After the briefing, Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella themselves issued a statement about the unacceptability of foreign interference and mentioned Russia among the sources of such pressure; the Kremlin categorically rejected these claims.
For Macron, this is already a beneficial outcome. It is not essential to convince the opposition entirely. It is enough to ensure that the discussion revolves not around whether there is a problem at all, but around how to respond to it.
But Vega Is Not Only About Ukraine
It would be a mistake to see the meeting merely as an attempt to cement France's Ukrainian policy. A significant part of the nearly three-hour discussion dealt with a completely different threat - energy.
Paris is bracing for a difficult autumn-winter period due to the consequences of the Middle Eastern conflict, problems with shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, and rising prices for oil, diesel, aviation fuel, and gas. Macron directly warned that the energy situation will continue to shape the country's life over the coming weeks. France plans to coordinate reserves within the G7, seek alternative supply routes, and strive for additional measures at the EU level.
This adds another political dimension to the meeting. High fuel prices will be felt by French voters much faster than hybrid threats or changes in the strategic balance in Eastern Europe. Moreover, the government's capacity to mitigate such a shock is limited by the state of public finances: France is simultaneously trying to reduce its deficit and control the cost of living.
Thus, by inviting the opposition to Vega, Macron effectively shows them not just one crisis, but the entire dashboard: Russia, Ukraine, drones, cyberattacks, Hormuz, gas, oil, budget.
No one is prohibited from criticizing government decisions after this. But proposing simple solutions becomes more difficult.
Collective Ownership of Bad News
This is where the most interesting political effect of Vega lies. The French president cannot create an interparty consensus by decree. He cannot force Bardella, the left, or the future president to continue his own policy. But he can make them co-owners of the information on which this policy is based.
This is especially convenient at the end of a presidential term. If the upcoming winter indeed proves to be difficult, energy prices rise, defense expenditures must increase, and support for Ukraine must continue, the Élysée Palace will be able to remind that the main political forces saw the same intelligence assessments.
In this sense, the underground center Vega is almost an ideal political theater. Not because the opposition was shown some magical secret map of the future in the bunker. But because the authorities invited their potential successors into the inner workings of the state for several hours.
Macron cannot guarantee that after 2027 France will maintain his foreign policy course. But he can make a sharp turn more challenging to explain.
The next president of France does not yet know whether he will sit in the Élysée Palace. However, after Vega, it will be much harder for him to say that he did not know what lay in his basement.