PARIS — Goodwill only gets you so far — even if you used to represent a country you're asking for help.

That's the reality Georgia's new President Salomé Zourabichvili had to contend with this week as the former French diplomat visited Paris to seek closer ties with the EU and NATO.

Zourabichvili met President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday at the Elysée Palace, on her first bilateral foreign trip as head of state. The visit was also something of a return home. Although she was elected president of the land of her ancestors in December, Zourabichvili was born in France and spent three decades working in its foreign service.

While Macron repeatedly stressed the friendship between their two countries, he also stuck to standard French talking points, designed to avoid rocking the boat with Russia. He reiterated France’s continued support for Georgia’s territorial integrity and sovereignty — but did not say explicitly that Moscow occupies 20 percent of the country.

Speaking to POLITICO at her Paris hotel at the end of her whirlwind three-day visit, Zourabichvili played down the significance of Macron’s choice of words. Instead she pointed to France’s participation in a European Union monitoring mission on Georgia’s border with Russia as more significant.

“Our male colleagues would say Salomé is the man they wished they were, a steel fist in a silk glove” — Muriel Domenach, French diplomat

“There are many things that France is now doing which would not have been possible in previous years," she said. "[Macron] was very clear about … supporting Georgia in any way it can.”

The operative phrase comes at the end of that sentence. There are some things France can do — and some things it can't, or won't.

For France, any decision on Georgia is part of a bigger calculation about relations with Russia. And French ministers are not going to risk a confrontation with Moscow over a country of 3.7 million people, even if its president used to be one of their employees.

“France’s approach to Russia is one of hard-nosed pragmatism,” said Nicu Popescu of the European Council on Foreign Relations. While Macron has abandoned ideas of Moscow as a constructive partner, that doesn't mean he's looking for trouble.

“France is more willing to talk tough," he said, but "it is more likely to want to pick a fight with Russia over Syria or Libya than Georgia.”

Zourabichvili wants to bring her country closer to NATO and the EU, and hopes it will become a member of both organizations one day. But Russia has threatened military action if Georgia joins NATO. So the 66-year-old president has to walk a fine line.

Personal is political

Just like her country, Zourabichvili's own family history is intimately linked with Russia. Her grandparents, well-known independence activists, fled Soviet invasion in 1921. Her grandmother’s only brother, who stayed behind in Georgia, was shot dead.

Almost a century after their forefathers were forced to leave, Zourabichvili's son and daughter received death threats as she faced a pro-Russian candidate in a presidential election run-off last year.

But even before she won the presidency, Zourabichvili had already notched up a win over Moscow. As Georgian foreign minister in 2004, she negotiated the closure of Soviet-era military bases. She faced off with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, a notoriously tough negotiator.

"Nobody can think today that anything is going to be effective with today’s Putin" — Salomé Zourabichvili

“I still don’t have the complete explanation of why it worked,” she said. “I know what I was looking for, I know I didn’t compromise on the essential things, but why did it succeed…”

Her sentence tailed off into a shrug. That may be false modesty on her part.

At a particularly thorny moment in the negotiations she told Lavrov, “Don’t play your Soviet tricks on me,” according to a Western diplomat familiar with the details of the negotiations.

It was the kind of bold move Zourabichvili was known for in the French foreign service. “Our male colleagues would say Salomé is the man they wished they were, a steel fist in a silk glove,” said Muriel Domenach, a French diplomat who worked alongside her.

Quiet diplomacy

Zourabichvili may be a tough operator but she also appreciates the value of diplomacy. She indicated she was content for France to raise Georgia's disputes with Moscow behind the scenes.

“What we need is more engagement [on Georgia] from our partners in their discussions with Russia … but that will not necessarily happen in the public forum,” she said.

She said she and Macron had agreed that discreetly mentioning Georgia in their talks with Russia was “a way to go forward” — though with no guarantee of success.

"Nobody can think today that anything is going to be effective with today’s Putin," she said.

Quiet but firm engagement with Moscow is about the best Zourabichvili can hope for from France and other Western governments at the moment.

Paris is willing to move to a harder line with Moscow generally, argued Nicolas Tenzer, a professor at Sciences Po university in Paris, but not on its own. “There is a will to be more firm with Russia but not for a confrontation, because France is still looking for allies," he said. “Trump’s America isn’t it and the Europeans are split.”

Zourabichvili said she is banking on France to be her foremost ally not just because of her long affiliation with the country. “The only country that is very determined to go down the road with continuing the European project is France, so we have to cling to France," she said.

She acknowledged EU and NATO membership are out of reach, at least for a long time to come. But she has a strategy to deal with the EU's enlargement fatigue by seeking “quasi-membership” — a spin on Macron’s own vision of a multispeed Europe composed of different "circles."

Macron declared support for Zourabichvili's vision and announced a “new page” in Franco-Georgian ties.

“Wherever we can be, let’s be,” she said, pleading for closer ties with the EU. “That is culture, education … security and defense, transport, communications, economic cooperation in certain fields.”

Macron declared support for Zourabichvili's vision and announced a “new page” in Franco-Georgian ties, deepening cooperation in the realms of culture, education, trade, defense and cybersecurity.

Zourabichvili wants to establish sister-cities in her two countries, include Georgia in France’s big book fair and cultivate many other connections. Using her inside knowledge of Parisian high society, she lunched with a dozen highly influential French women on Monday. Gathered at the storied Cercle de l'Union Interalliée private dining club, a few doors down from the Elysée, were business executives, filmmakers, publishers, designers and a government minister.

Zourabichvili also took her pitch to German Chancellor Angela Merkel this week. But it is back in her native France where doors will open widest, at least as long as Macron is in office.

France “continues to welcome you as one of our own,” Macron told Zourabichvili at their joint press conference.

CORRECTION: This article was updated to correct an erroneous quote.