Boris Johnson is a character – in a Shakespearian sense more than Churchillian, no offense to him – paradoxical. Counterintuitively appointed by Prime Minister Theresa May as Foreign Secretary in June 2017, he was seen as Falstaff moving into Gladstone’s office.
I knew him when, the charismatic mayor of London, he extolled the merits of his open city, on the model of Athens versus Sparta, whose many emigrants contributed to its exceptional prosperity and dynamism. We saw him scruffy, hilarious and shouting at passers-by on his bike. He prided himself on being the mayor of the fourth largest French city with some 300,000 nationals. He took pleasure in the provocation by declaring to roll out the red carpet for French entrepreneurs scalded by the famous 75% tax. His relationship with France is like that of many Britons, ambiguous: a mixture of fascination, love, detestation and jealousy. His sometimes dubious jokes, inspired by his determination to “never sacrifice a good word for the truth”, were plentiful but of little consequence.
From supportive BoJo to political opportunist
Boris Johnson showed great solidarity at the time of the attacks on Charlie Hebdo, illuminating the most emblematic places of London in the colors of the French flag. He came the evening when the embassy organized a vigil with the French community in Trafalgar Square, where someone had managed to stick a small poster in the middle of Nelson’s column: “I am Charlie”. He had come spontaneously during the friendly football match at Wembley Stadium that Prime Minister Cameron had planned as support for the French ally. Boris Johnson had sung there The Marseillaise loudly. He also loved to speak in a rather colorful French. Our relations were very cordial then.
His opportunistic commitment to Brexit was a game-changer. His duties as Prime Minister, whose obsession was to “achieve Brexit” and above all to prove that it was a tremendous success, set him against the European Union and especially France, insofar as Emmanuel Macron had, on the contrary, campaigned on a European project. The French president expressed more vocally than his European counterparts, who thought no less, his indignation at the cavalier attitude of Boris Johnson denying his signature by questioning a treaty he had negotiated himself. , signed and, in his usual hyperbolic style, described as fantastic. The Northern Irish Protocol must be implemented both to protect the European internal market and to preserve the peace established by the Good Friday Agreement. It was not inevitable that the bilateral, real difficulties, on fishing or illegal immigration turn into real crises aggravated by eruptive public opinions. The dispatch off Jersey in May 2021 of Royal Navy boats, gunboats according to the Dailymailagainst French fishermen was a highlight.
Fix the relationship
The question of personal chemistry between leaders comes into play. There couldn’t be a more divergent philosophy and style. In other circumstances, Bojo’s histrionic side could have amused the French president, but the European stakes are too high. On both sides of the Channel, relations are judged to be at their lowest.
Will the change of leader at 10 Downing Street allow a return to a more cordial understanding? This will obviously depend on the successor and positions on Brexit. There is a desire to repair the relationship on both sides. In the context of the war in Ukraine, it is vital to return to close partnership in the field of security and defense in the spirit of the Lancaster house agreement signed in 2010, which has more or less fallen into disuse, despite the existence of a joint expeditionary force of 10,000 men. The question of rapprochement with the European Union and possible participation in operations remains. Could the new tenant of 10 Downing Street seize Emmanuel Macron’s trial balloon on the establishment of a European political community that would allow the United Kingdom to reconnect with its European destiny?