UK deserves to get a ‘tailor made’ deal from the EU
Laurent Wauquiez, the new leader of the conservatives in France, believes that Britain should not be punished for Brexit
Europe must not “punish” Britain over Brexit, the new head of the French conservatives warned yesterday, as he urged a “rethink” of the EU with a “tailor-made” regime for the UK. In his first British interview since clinching the leadership of Les Républicains (The Republicans), France’s main opposition party, Laurent Wauquiez took aim at President Emmanuel Macron’s “headlong rush towards federalism” and French “arrogance” in dealing with its neighbours.
Mr Wauquiez, a former minister in Nicolas Sarkozy’s administration, now faces the daunting task of rebuilding a conservative party which dominated French politics for 40 of the past 60 years but lies in ruins after Mr Macron’s May election shattered the two-party political system.
Europe, insisted Mr Wauquiez, 42, is one domain where he stands out against the “federalist, technocratic” Mr Macron.
“I don’t like the way some speak of the UK today, where one gets the impression that the evil British people should be punished for daring to vote against the European Union,” he told The Daily Telegraph and a group of European newspapers at his headquarters in western Paris.
“The British people voted… this path must be respected. The Brexit negotiations must be able – without punishment, without excessive aggressiveness – to respect what the British people have expressed.”
He added: “How can anyone rejoice at showing the door to the British people, Europe’s second largest economy? It makes no sense. So we must naturally work on a system that allows Britain to maintain very close cooperation (with the EU).
“I cannot for a single moment accept that we treat Britain in the same way as we treat Canada or China. It’s unthinkable.”
Once a moderate Europhile, Mr Wauqiez now toes a far more sceptical line, notoriously branding the European Council a “bunch of lemurs” and the European Commission president a “navel-gazing tapir” in a 2014 book. Some party moderates were appalled.
He said he respected the Brexit vote as “its relationship with European democracy had become a burning issue”, saying: “I sometimes detect a lot of arrogance in the French approach to other foreign countries.”
He does not advocate “Frexit”, instead calling for a “re-founding” European Treaty based on three concentric circles, which would be put to referendum in France.
At its core would be an EU of “six to 12” member states, which would seek harmonisation in areas like social and labour legislation to avoid social dumping.
The second circle of members would be in line with today’s eurozone, whose main goal should be a monetary policy that creates jobs.
In the third circle, free trade should be guaranteed, with full respect for national sovereignty.
He said: “We must be able to create a tailor-made regime for the UK. Brexit must lead us to a rethink on how the EU works.
“We must invent a model linking (the UK) to the common market, a partnership model that cannot be the same type as the one we have with countries outside the EU.
“It would be quite astonishing if we had a Europe that on the one hand negotiated with Turkey and on the other treated Britain like an external country. It doesn’t make sense.”
Mr Wauquiez stopped short of criticising the EU’S chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, a fellow French conservative, saying he was employing “the right mix of firmness and an outstretched hand”.
“If we want to handle this dossier properly, we need to move swiftly on to discussions about our common future. That’s why I think it’s in the British government’s interests that the separation negotiations are swiftly completed so we can work on, on the contrary, a long-term contract of ‘association’.”
It is unclear how he would convince others, including Germany, to back him. Germany, not France, was “clearly the most intransigent country
‘How can anyone rejoice at showing the door to the British people, Europe’s second largest economy?’ ’
on Brexit today”, he claimed, adding that this was “evident in the last European summit”.
Mr Wauquiez’s vision of Europe sees no room for further enlargement and places the emphasis on concrete projects such as IT, infrastructure or the fight against Alzheimer’s.
He called for a total shake-up of the passport-free Schengen zone, saying: “Europe of immigration doesn’t work” as the needs of countries like Germany and France are so different… What I want is for Europe to be able to manage its migration policy.”
In an apparent swipe at Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, he added: “I cannot accept that when a member state decides to hand out papers to illegal immigrants, it’s a decision that affects all states.”
A staunch Catholic, Mr Wauquiez is a social conservative who wants the EU to stick up for its “Judeo-christian” history and France to train its secularist obsession on Islamism rather than “Christmas nativity cribs”.
“It’s a profound error to think we’ll integrate Muslims here by forgetting our Christian roots,” he said. Affirming that identity, he said, was a powerful response to “massive immigration flows” that could “potentially wash away our countries”.
Critics accuse Mr Wauquiez of aping the far-right Front National, which has even mooted joining forces, but he categorically ruled out any “dodgy deals in dark rooms” with Marine Le Pen, its leader.
“I want to be very clear: this is not Austria,” he said, adding that the pair disagreed on Europe, the euro and “wasting public money”.
Ms Le Pen, who has lost authority since coming second in the presidential election, has dismissed the challenge from Mr Wauquiez.
“He will inherit a crown without a kingdom, a party without partisans,” she said.
President Macron’s victory led many Republicans to desert their party for the new president’s centrist En Marche!, which won an absolute parliamentary majority in June.
Mr Macron took three Republicans into his government: Édouard Philippe, the prime minister, Bruno Le Maire, the finance minister, and Gérald Darmanin, the budget minister. Some Republicans MPS have also left their party to support Mr Macron.
But the Republicans remain the biggest opposition party with 100 MPS, and they increased their majority in the Senate in September.
To distance his party from the Macron camp, Mr Wauquiez has tacked right at the risk of losing moderate support, and despite his elite upbringing, depicts himself as the champion of disfranchised France against an urbanite president “who hates the provinces”.
The tactic has so far failed to hurt Mr Macron, whose popularity jumped back above 50 per cent this month after a dip over the summer.
Unfazed, Mr Wauquiez said his immediate priority was to stop Mr Macron creating a “gigantic black hole” at the centre of French politics with nothing but “extremes” – a scenario that posed a “mortal threat to the future of French democracy”.
“I think that when the Right doesn’t do its job, it gives birth to the farright. And in France, for too long the Right hasn’t done its job.”