WASHINGTON — I lived for a long time in a France where nothing was possible. Not that the country did not change; it did, but France was more interested in resisting change in order to cling to what it had. Words like “flexibility” were suspect. They denoted the Anglo-Saxon model, as it was quaintly called, of a competitive labor market where people could be hired and fired. Moroseness became the badge of honor of a beautiful, seductive can’t-do nation.

This France meandered into the 21st century, a still significant but increasingly marginal power, when, out of nowhere, along comes Mr. Flexibility. He is young, he’s restless, he’s had it with the tired hypocrisy behind Gallic paralysis; and, almost a year ago, he sweeps to victory in a presidential election. His name, of course, is Emmanuel Macron. Watching him the other day, speaking on the record and without notes to a small group of journalists at the conclusion of a three-day love-in with President Trump, the thought that came to mind was: The world owes one to France, big time.

Sure, there’s an ego, and, sure, the flexibility — the endless bobbing and weaving in search of solutions — can lead Macron into on-the-one-hand, on-the-other-hand labyrinths. But the vanity is tied to purposefulness and the adaptability is not evasion of risk.

Macron’s strange friendship with Trump is itself risky: the American president is unpopular in Europe, and Macron flirts with being seen as Trump’s poodle. Snuggling up to Donald can be a career-threatening move, as many people have discovered. Macron does not shy away from this danger because, in a world whose American-led order has frayed, keeping Trump from his worst America-first instincts is worth the fight (and coddling). Macron is playing the long game with an irascible Trump, whose views are not his.