Paris, worried about European dependence on Russian energy, said on Thursday – and ahead of a key EU vote– that it wants the bloc’s Third Energy Package rules to be applied to the Nord Stream deal. Those rules forbid the same company from generating, transmitting and selling energy at the same time and, if applied, could derail the deal.

France’s move could put serious cracks in Macron’s relationship with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Canceling allows him to avoid making a potentially awkward planned joint appearance with Merkel at the event in Munich.

In this context, not everyone is buying the line that Macron is staying home just to deal with fallout from the Yellow Vest protests. Henrik Enderlein, director of the German-French Jacques Delors Institute in Berlin, told Süddeutsche Zeitung that the president’s decision to nix his appearance at the mid-February conference was a “symbolic signal” and that there are more and more signs of a “creeping alienation” between Paris and Berlin.