It’s a matter of public record that France and Germany were aligning towards Russia and away from the US geopolitically. They referred to it as “the troika”.

Past tense, I still don't see why this was wrong back the day. Also, I never said Europe didn't form closer ties with Russia. I still think thisbis a, generally, good idea. One that is just impossible in the current situation and under the current Russian leadership. Long term so, it is still a viable strategy. Isolating Russia for good is a bad option, IMHO.

That being said, Russia has to end the war in Ukraine, retreat from the occupied territories. And the West has to do some soul searching once this happened, our track record when it comes to invasions and occupations isn't that great in the last 20 odd years.

That's somewhat of an exaggeration. There were "troika" meetings in the late 1990s and in 2003, but France and Germany remained in the US' orbit.

The Iraq War was probably the time of maximum German/French political autonomy, when they publicly opposed the US on a major issue, but there's very little of that spirit left. France and Germany have hitched themselves even more strongly to the US now, to the point that the German foreign minister is talking about decoupling from China (a policy that makes no rational sense for Germany, but which signals that Germany sides with the US in the geopolitical rivalry).

As far as their attitude towards Russia goes, Germany and France have had terrible relations with Russia since 2014, at the latest. Germany tried not to sever all economic ties with Russia, and it tried to negotiate a settlement to the war in the Donbas, but that doesn't mean that relations were friendly.