The top dog at Paris just made Vladimir Putin’s day. President Macron, through a representative, nixed a recent proposal that would have seen the North Atlantic Treaty Organization open a liaison office in Japan.

It comes after Mr. Macron said last week that expanding NATO’s “geography” would be a “big mistake.” That evoked memories of President de Gaulle’s decision in 1966 to pull France out of NATO’s integrated command structure — a move not reversed until 2009, when President Sarkozy changed course.