Undiplomatic relations
Emmanuel Macron “appears to have lost all sense of proportion”, said The Daily Telegraph. Soon after the tragic drowning of 27 migrants in the Channel, the French president disinvited the Home Secretary Priti Patel from an emergency ministerial meeting aimed at finding a solution to the migrant crisis, and publicly berated Boris Johnson. The trigger for this “incredible display of petulance” was a letter from Johnson setting out proposals for greater Anglo-French cooperation to prevent migrants leaving the French coast. Macron complained that Johnson had published the letter on Twitter before it reached him, which he said was the wrong way to “communicate between leaders”; and he scolded Johnson for his failure to be “serious”. But Johnson’s proposals – including joint maritime and airborne surveillance of French beaches – were “entirely serious”.
Unfortunately, Macron seems more interested in “bashing” the Brits than in “saving lives”.
Macron’s reaction was “extraordinary”, said Clare Foges in The Times, but “so too was the British action that triggered it”. What on earth possessed the Government to tweet a private letter detailing such sensitive policy proposals? Yes, Macron has had his truculent moments in recent months, such as over fishing licences, but it’s Johnson who has “set the tone of the battle” by using attacks on the “French bogeyman” to shore up popular support at home. His crude rhetoric over Brexit – accusing the Europeans, to take just one example, of talking “bollocks” over free movement – ignored the genuine “emotional” attachment many Europeans have to the EU. More recently, in the bitter fallout over the Australia-UK-US nuclear submarine deal that excluded France, Johnson needlessly inflamed sensitivities by telling Macron to “donnez-moi un break” in “Del Boy Franglais”. The pair disagree profoundly on the issue of seriousness. Johnson sees it as “the ultimate sin”, while Macron is very serious indeed. He says he will only engage with the British “if they decide to be serious”.
The Channel crisis “cannot be solved”, said John Lichfield on UnHerd – ultimately, it can only be managed. “And like it or not, it can only be managed with the help of France.” Migrants are now reaching Britain by sea only because other routes, such as the Channel Tunnel, have been closed off largely “by the diligence of the French”: Tony Blair and Jacques Chirac agreed at Le Touquet in 2003 that France would hold back UK-bound migrants. If France ended that policy, “Britain would face the full force of Europe’s wider migration crisis for the first time”. Johnson and Macron now “need to rise above their increasingly corrosive rivalry”, said The Times. Johnson needs to stop playing to the gallery; Macron must control his temper. “At a time of geopolitical instability, what is required is calm statesmanship, not undignified point-scoring.”