Always Blame The French, “Put it all on the French.” For eight years since the Brexit referendum, this had been the mantra of successive British governments. Forced to manage as best they could the harmful effects of their exit from the European Union, they had found an ideal culprit on the other side of the Channel. Uncontrolled immigration? Caused by the laxity of the French police. Shortages in supermarkets? The fault of customs duties imposed by Paris. The laborious negotiations with the European Union? Born of a desire for revenge by the French elite. Let us remember that Boris Johnson had chartered two military shuttles to neutralize angry French fishermen near the island of Jersey in May 2021. “We have never had such a level of tension since Waterloo,” confided, without joking, a former French diplomat.
After such a long drift, this month of July seemed like the hope of a return to the Entente Cordiale, this elegant formula from 1904 that officially defines relations between our two countries. As the British ambassador to Paris, Menna Rawlings, elegantly put it, “Franco-British elections are like buses: you spend the day waiting for them and finally they all arrive at the same time”. On July 4, the British triumphantly carried a party opposed to Brexit and a Prime Minister inclined to develop economic ties with Europe. Of course, Keir Starmer will not return to the exit from the EU, so heavy and complex was the divorce. But a new era was about to open on both sides of the Channel, with Paris as the ideal partner for this renewal.
Alas. By dissolving the National Assembly, Emmanuel Macron has darkened this new Franco-British chapter even before its first sentence. Two early legislative elections, for two opposing scenarios. “This is a turning point for our two countries, and as much as Great Britain’s path has become clearer, the French road seems winding to us,” worries a British diplomat. While the United Kingdom is regaining its political serenity after years of excess, France is sinking into chaos and demagogy. “French diplomacy had the opportunity to recreate the union with the British and bring them back into European strategic thinking,” laments international relations specialist Tara Varma. But France finds itself unpredictable on the world stage. This is one of the catastrophic effects of the dissolution.” For once, our British friends would be right to blame the French.