Only Britain can save France from German domination

Are Britain and France at the dawn of a new Entente Cordiale? It’s reported that France will be the destination for the first state visit of King Charles, and in New York this week Liz Truss and Emmanuel Macron took a break from the UN General Assembly for 30 minutes of ‘constructive’ talks.

There are many in France who long for a closer relationship with Britain and, at the same time, for a gradual decoupling from Germany.

I wrote in April last year of the growing French scepticism towards Germany; of how in the words of one current affairs magazine, France has for decades been ‘fleeced’ by its eastern neighbour economically.

Rare were the politicians who pointed this out. One exception, Marine Le Pen, a long-standing critic of Germany, declared in 2021 that were she ever to become president she would seek a ‘divorce’ from the Franco-Germany couple in favour of establishing a closer relationship with Britain.

Hers is no longer a lone voice because the energy crisis has taken the French scepticism mainstream.

The energy crisis has taken French scepticism of Germany mainstream

Twelve months ago the European think tank, the Jacques Delors Institute, published a policy paper that praised Germany’s energy strategy of energiewende (energy turnaround). The paper concluded that in rejecting nuclear energy, ‘Germany is thus successfully completing the “energy turnaround” that began more than 20 years ago.’

Anyone who dared challenge this orthodoxy was mocked, as Donald Trump was at the UN General Assembly in 2018 when he warned the Germans that they were making a serious mistake in becoming ‘totally dependent on Russian energy’. As the Washington Post reported, the reaction among most delegates was one of mirth and the German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas ‘could be seen smirking alongside his colleagues’.

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Last week Olivier Marleix, the leader of the centre-right Republicans in the National Assembly, wrote an op-ed in Le Figaro that savaged Germany’s energy policy and also criticised Emmanuel Macron for going along with it.