French president Emmanuel Macron has phoned Sir Keir Starmer to congratulate him on his appointment as prime minister. Macron’s Twitter account records that he was ‘pleased with our first discussion’, adding: ‘We will continue the work begun with the UK for our bilateral cooperation, for peace and security in Europe, for the climate and for AI.’ But the British Prime Minister should beware Macron bearing gifts.
As is the custom, the British prime minister will have received similar calls from a host of foreign heads of state and government. But Emmanuel Macron is different. The European and French general elections have taken a serious toll of his reputation domestically and internationally. Sunday’s second round voting is now unlikely to give Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National an outright majority. Nor will it for any of the three parliamentary blocs. In this most hung of parliaments, the president will stretch every sinew to assemble a fragile, baroque ‘rainbow’ coalition, that excludes the RN, to carry on governing. Given the opprobrium with which he is held domestically, not least among erstwhile Macronists, his profile will perforce be very low. That leaves only international affairs to make Macron great again.
Much of the Foreign Office still clings to Macron’s internationalism and EU expansionism
In truth, his standing among world leaders is little better. But a fresh new Labour government has no experience of this. Much of the Foreign Office still clings to Macron’s internationalism and EU expansionism. The new Foreign Secretary David Lammy recently sketched his international outlook in Foreign Affairs: ‘The Case for Progressive Realism’. Behind this oxymoron lies a plan to bolster foreign and security links with France through the 2010 Lancaster House agreements as an entry point to closer relations with Brussels. Lammy showed his hand in claiming Labour wants a wide-ranging ‘security pact’ with the EU. He will be expecting Macron’s seven-year Brexit-infused bitterness and petulance towards Britain to evaporate in the face of an EU-compatible Labour administration. Labour have insisted they will not return the UK to the EU fold. But Macron has other designs.
Most observers regard his only constancy over these last seven years to be his EU mission. Brexit deeply attacked that. Hence the need to prove its failure. In a leaked letter former Macronist prime minister Jean Castex called on the President of the EU Commission on 21 November 2021 to ‘punish’ the UK during the fisheries dispute. It was ‘indispensable to show clearly to European public opinion… that leaving the Union is more damaging than staying in it.’ But facts are stubborn. The British economy continues to outperform the French one, let alone Germany’s. What better opportunity now than the sight of a fresh new British government immediately and openly signalling the error of Brexit by wishing to draw much closer to the EU.
An amusing diplomatic legacy of the Conservative administration is set for 18 July. The British Prime Minister will host the French President for the European Political Community at Blenheim Palace, along with some 50 European leaders. Seat of the Dukes of Marlborough, the Palace was a gift from Queen Anne to John Churchill, first Duke of Marlborough for his military triumph against the French at the 1704 Battle of Blenheim.
Macron will doubtless find the contrivance amusing. But that was the Conservatives. He will be on manoeuvres now with Labour. The EPC is a Macron creation from 2022 to draw continent-wide non-EU members into the EU bosom, with the UK specifically mentioned in the president’s founding speech. With Labour Macron will adopt a different approach.
The great British military strategist Sir Basil Liddell Hart’s influential work Strategy: The Indirect Approach opens with a quote from the legendary 500 BC Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu’s Art of War: ‘All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near. Hold out baits to entice the enemy. Feign disorder, and crush him.’ Macron’s enemy is of course Brexit.
There are obvious advantages to a European continent-wide body to develop collective policies on security, immigration, energy. Even Liz Truss agreed so. But Starmer and Lammy should beware the indirect Macronist approach when seeking closer Franco-British relations. There is much to be gained from an improved atmosphere with Paris. But Starmer and Lammy should wait until Macron has left the battlefield in 2027, or even retired wounded before.
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