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At the center of this week’s late-breaking crisis in talks with the EU is the tortuous complexity of Britain’s relationship with France. As Germany tries to push both sides towards a deal, Eastern European states hope for the best and Ireland worries about the disastrous consequences of a no-deal outcome, it is France that hardens the spine of its own Michel Barnier and affects the disdain for deadlines. and commitments. Italy and Spain support the French hardline position, but they would soon be overturned in Brussels without the leadership of Paris.
Ever since Britain and France have existed as states in their modern form, the relationship between them has been one of the most fundamental issues for their leaders. For centuries that meant regular conflict. Since 1904, faced with greater dangers than they pose to each other, the Entente Cordiale has relied on a strategic alliance. When France collapsed in 1940, Churchill briefly proposed a union of the two countries. London provided the refuge and rallying point for de Gaulle, who was to prove to be an energetic but often infuriating ally, setting the tone for decades to come.
As Foreign Secretary, I fully experienced how relations with France can be deeply intimate and highly productive on a daily basis, yet lead to fierce confrontations on European issues. In 2010 we signed the Treaties of the House of Lancaster, inaugurating our closest peacetime military cooperation and integration, extending to some of the most sensitive defense technologies. The Sarkozy government sensibly joined the NATO military command structure. Whenever trouble arose in North Africa, the British and French forces worked together smoothly. During the Libyan crisis, I spoke to my French counterpart almost every day.
And yet, at exactly the same time, we had a furious disagreement over whether the EU should have its own military headquarters. Here, the radically different histories of our countries produced a strong policy clash. For us British, the lesson of the 20th century is that we survive by being separated from Europe and by building transatlantic security. For the French, it was what they needed to build a united Europe with themselves in a leadership role.
In 2011, I argued for a whole day with French Foreign Minister Alain Juppé, with whom I stayed on the friendliest terms, as his insistence on an EU headquarters met my inflexible veto. The other EU foreign ministers watched in amazement as the two allies fought off.
I tell these events because they have become the family story of UK-French relations – an extraordinarily deep friendship that takes place simultaneously with uncompromising altercations. It is a regular pattern and it is happening again. These long lines between London and Paris have three common characteristics. The first is the radically different concepts we have of the role of Europe in our histories and futures. Second, there is a constant French suspicion that the Anglo-Saxon way of doing things will undermine them and that we will always come back to it. They know that we regard America as our greatest ally and they think that we are naturally like Americans. Third, and dangerously, both British and French leaders often underestimate each other’s determination to defend their position.
These three factors are making it very difficult to conclude a trade deal between the EU and Britain, although no sane person could imagine that it would not be the best for everyone, especially in France. Literally millions of British and French citizens live or regularly visit each other’s countries, or work for companies that depend on trade and travel between us. A no-deal outcome would be very bad news for farmers, fishermen, shippers and many others on both sides of the Canal. However, the chances of avoiding it now seem perfectly balanced.
Both parties have made mistakes. The Boris Johnson government should not have been wrong in trying to break the Northern Ireland accords it signed just a year ago. But an equally big mistake lies in the French assumption that our Anglo-Saxon traditions mean that we have to be bound to keep rules and regulations close to theirs. They clearly fear that we will become the sweatshop of Europe, undermining them with unfairly cheap products and fooling them with fierce competition.
However, do we really look like a country that is about to do that? So far we have reduced our carbon emissions by almost double the EU average and we have ambitious plans to do much more. Our laws banning single-use plastics go beyond any EU proposal. We are now looking at much higher animal welfare standards than the rest of Europe. Britain is ahead of EU rules on maternity leave and allows flexible working, has a higher minimum wage than the vast majority of EU countries and spends less than half of what France does. in subsidizing industries.
Furthermore, British politics has now developed in a way that means that no party is interested in getting rid of high standards for employees and people at work or at home – the Red Wall of northern towns and cities is the battlefield of the next election. Hopefully, post-Brexit Britain will find ways to design simpler and more sensible rules in some respects, but that’s quite different from mounting systematically unfair competition to undermine our neighbors.
French mistrust of Anglo-Saxon customs is misplaced in the 2020s and threatens to ruin a deal for no proper reason. Just as disturbing is the underestimation of the determination of others. If there is chaos for travel and commerce after December 31, the strong sentiments provoked could create the biggest crisis in our relationships in more than a century.
That would be a tragedy. The UK and France are going to greatly need mutual solidarity in the coming decades. In this intense friendship, full of suspicions, it is vital to understand that we have very different stories but now we face the same pressures from China, Russia, climate change, migration and terrorism. If President Macron believes that Britain is going to compete unfairly, he is taking a very big risk due to another misunderstanding.
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