A couple of seconds within a two-and-a-half hour television interview propelled French President Macron on the front pages of international media, as the one who claims he persuaded President Trump to change his policy in Syria. Macron repeated four times that "we convinced him” to maintain US troops in the country and to limit air strikes to the regime’s chemical weapons sites. This publicly made statement is more than a diplomatic gaffe. It also, and above all, reveals that the French president is tempted by a rather naive approach to relations with America, the same that had, time and time again, led Britain into an impasse.