It is impossible to know what to make of reports that Emmanuel Macron of France and China’s supreme leader, Xi Jinping, are working together to evolve an end to the war in Ukraine.

It may be nothing, or it may be something that ends up as nothing – the worst and most likely outcome for Macron. But it may, on the other hand, be something that leads to a possible resolution of the conflict, which would transform the President from lame duck to strutting French cock.