![]() The French retorted that Britain had promised to pay for extra police on the Calais side of the water but never handed over the money.īritain also imposed harsh controls on travellers from France in the summer - on the bizarre grounds that a new variant of Covid was raging in the French Indian Ocean island of Réunion. Then Britain accused France in July of failing to stop illegal migrants from crossing the Channel in small boats. There was then the row over Astra-Zeneca supplies. ![]() Instead the last ten months have been scarred by a succession of Anglo-French disputes, starting with big tail-backs of trucks in England in January after France imposed strict Covid controls on travel across the Channel. He had hoped that France, as a neighbour and important military partner, would play the key role in keeping Johnsonian Britain in the European orbit. His anger is driven by disappointment and a sense of betrayal. The standard British view - that he has sought cross-Channel quarrels from the beginning - could not be more wrong. Macron does not do “palliness” but he does do pique. Macron was angry with AstraZeneca at the time for failing to meet its commitments to supply the EU-27 - while providing plenty of doses for the UK. Something similar happened earlier this year when Macron made slighting remarks to foreign journalists on the effectiveness of the AstraZeneca Covid vaccine on the elderly. But the President came over as being petty and lacking emotional control. Many Australian politicians and officials would agree with his criticism of the AUKUS deal. ![]() Macron may be right about Scott Morrison. And as Macron’s recent decision to call Australia’s Prime Minister a liar shows, sometimes that lack of political education shows. Macron is leader of one of the world’s richest and most powerful countries, but he has only just over four years’ experience as a politician - let alone as a statesman. In other words, he has allowed the British leader to get under his skin. The French president has come to think of Johnson, Elysée sources say, as an unreliable but crafty buffoon. Macron once thought that he could charm and handle the British leader, just as he once thought that he could schmooze Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump.ĭowning Street says that the two men are “pals”. Macron detests populism but he has a moth-like attraction to populists, which usually goes astray. In the case of Macron, the animus, I believe, is not against Britain. Suggested reading Is Éric Zemmour the French Trump? They have encouraged, or allowed, the disputes to become too personal. But the tone of this year’s Franco-British quarrels have been nastier than any of those which came before. Both leaders are partly to blame. There have been several nadirs in Anglo-French relations in my almost quarter century living in and writing about France: mad cow disease, foot and mouth, Jacques Chirac’s refusal to join Tony Blair in the second Iraq war. It was mistranslated and misconstrued - as “lets damage the UK all we can” - by both the British government and much of the British media. This was the argument made in a clumsily written letter to the European Commission last week by Macron’s Prime Minister, Jean Castex. His aim is not to “punish” Britain, but to ensure that Britain should not be allowed to leave the EU and keep the benefits of staying in. Meanwhile, Macron has been determined, partly for electoral reasons but mostly from personal conviction, to ensure that Britain does not slide out of its Brexit commitments. Johnson knows that sticking it to the French is always an excellent tactic in a time of crisis. Why has such a small quarrel become so huge? The simple answer is that it is part of a pattern of deteriorating post-Brexit relations between Britain and France - quarrelsome neighbours at the best of times. The political body language on both sides suggests that a deal is close - though it could yet slip through the net. He suspended until Friday his threat to block British fishing boats from selling their catches in French ports and, worse, imposing full-scale customs checks on all trucks crossing the English Channel. On Monday, Macron pulled back from the brink of an explosive trade war with Britain. It is a small, very messy, very technical dispute which could be solved, with goodwill on all sides, in an afternoon it may be resolved tomorrow when the British Brexit minister, Lord Frost, meets the French Europe minister, Clément Beaune, in Paris. More from this author Michel Barnier could be the next French president
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