Know Your Weight Category...

... I am about Macron. The guy is still deluded about the place and role of France in the larger geopolitical scheme of things. Well, he has got a reminder from Republic of South Africa. 

ПРЕТОРИЯ, 22 июня. /ТАСС/. Южно-Африканская Республика принимает ключевые решения, связанные с саммитом БРИКС (Бразилия, Россия, Индия, Китай, ЮАР), в тесной координации со всеми странами объединения. Это касается и вопроса о желании президента Франции Эмманюэля Макрона участвовать в его работе. Об этом ТАСС сообщили в четверг в МИД ЮАР.

"Согласно правилам БРИКС, организующая саммит страна-председатель разрабатывает повестку дня и формат встречи на высоком уровне, - отметил собеседник агентства. - Председатель также приглашает на поля саммита лидеров государств, не входящих в БРИКС, для проведения более широких заседаний по региональным или иным вопросам. Однако все главные форматы на полях саммита подлежат согласованию с другими странами - членами БРИКС, и ЮАР будет следовать традиции объединения. Этот подход будет использоваться и в случае, если лидеры государств, не входящих в БРИКС, высказывают в частном порядке пожелания прибыть [на саммит] и участвовать в мероприятиях саммита объединения в августе в Йоханнесбурге".

Translation: PRETORIA, 22 June. /TASS/. The Republic of South Africa takes key decisions related to the BRICS summit (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa), in close coordination with all countries of the association. This also applies to the question of the desire of French President Emmanuel Macron to participate in its work. This was reported to TASS on Thursday by the South African Foreign Ministry. "According to the rules of the BRICS, the chair country that organizes the summit develops the agenda and format of the high-level meeting," the source said. "The chairman also invites non-BRICS leaders to the summit to hold broader meetings on regional or other issues However, all main formats on the sidelines of the summit are subject to agreement with other BRICS countries, and South Africa will follow the tradition of association.This approach will also be used if non-BRICS leaders privately express their wishes to come [to the summit ] and participate in the unification summit events in August in Johannesburg."

Oh boy, that's gotta hurt. Not that Macron has the sense of honor and decency, but still. And he should have gotten the message by now:

French President Emmanuel Macron’s attendance at a meeting of BRICS leaders would be “inappropriate,” considering his government’s stance against Moscow, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov has said. Paris confirmed this week that Macron is seeking an invitation to the bloc’s summit in South Africa in August. Speaking to journalists on Thursday, Ryabkov explained that Russia’s opposition to Macron’s potential appearance was based on France’s efforts to isolate Moscow and its support for NATO’s goal of inflicting a “strategic defeat” on Russia in the Ukraine conflict. “We are not hiding this position and have informed our South African colleagues about it,” Ryabkov said, as cited by Interfax. “We expect our point of view to be fully taken into account.”

In diplomatic language what SAR stated means: go fuck yourself. Pretty clear, really. Let's recall Tolstoy's definitions:

Pfuel was one of those hopelessly and immutably self-confident men, self-confident to the point of martyrdom as only Germans are, because only Germans are self-confident on the basis of an abstract notion—science, that is, the supposed knowledge of absolute truth. A Frenchman is self-assured because he regards himself personally, both in mind and body, as irresistibly attractive to men and women. An Englishman is self-assured, as being a citizen of the best-organized state in the world, and therefore as an Englishman always knows what he should do and knows that all he does as an Englishman is undoubtedly correct. An Italian is self-assured because he is excitable and easily forgets himself and other people. A Russian is self-assured just because he knows nothing and does not want to know anything, since he does not believe that anything can be known. The German’s self-assurance is worst of all, stronger and more repulsive than any other, because he imagines that he knows the truth—science—which he himself has invented but which is for him the absolute truth. 

Pretty clear, isn't it?