Macron’s guerrilla war will backfire on him

The French president has been determined from the start to make an example of us for leaving the EU

Even if the chaos in Kent caused by Emmanuel Macron’s blockade of the Channel ports dissipates over the next few days, it still needs to be asked: why did France, alone among our near-neighbours, decide in the first place that a ban on freight, as well as passengers, was an appropriate response to the growth of a new variant of SARS-COV-2?

To halt flights and passenger trains, and to ban cars from crossing the Channel, was one thing. But freight? Not at the height of the first Covid lockdown in the spring, when French citizens were confined to their homes and allowed out only if they filled in a form stating their reason, did the French government see it as necessary to cut off freight links with any country.

When you are trying to calm the public in a crisis, severing freight links is the worst thing that you can do. It threatens food shortages and encourages panic-buying. Moreover, what threat do lorry drivers really pose? Most live in their cabs for days on end while away from home, microwaving their meals and only getting out to use the toilet – most likely in an unmanned French motorway service station.

Since the new strain of virus came to light in September, hundreds of thousands of people have crossed the Channel on holiday, business trips or for study. If the new strain hasn’t reached France by now it would be astounding.

Belgium and the Netherlands realised this straight away, and while they banned cars from cross-channel ferries, they allowed lorries to continue to cross. Indeed, some lorry drivers who had been due to travel via Calais managed to rebook for the Belgian and Dutch routes.

Sadly, it is impossible not to view France’s decision through the lens of Brexit – as an extension of the guerrilla war which Mr Macron continues to fight to try to ensure that Britain’s departure from the EU is as painful as possible. Blocking the ports looks just a little too much like an attempt to remind us that a hard border will be erected between Britain and France, trade deal or no trade deal.

I wouldn’t be surprised if it was dreamed up as direct retaliation for Britain’s threat to deploy naval vessels to police fishing in the Channel post-brexit. You rev up your warships? Just you look what I can do – I’ll cut off your food supplies.

In normal times, of course, it would not be allowed – the World Trade Organisation does not take kindly to blockades. Yet Covid has created the emergency situation where interfering with the free passage of people and goods for the purposes of political posturing becomes possible. Just look at the sheer pleasure on Nicola Sturgeon’s face as she announced she was closing the Scottish border to English visitors.

This is the second time in a week that lorry drivers have found themselves bearing the brunt of pettiness. They learnt last week that the European Commission will ban them from taking ham and cheese sandwiches to eat en route following the end of the transitional arrangements, deal or no deal. According to the European

Commission it is in the name of maintaining a “biosecure border”.

But hasn’t Britain already agreed to maintain agricultural standards post-brexit? What was the point of that if drivers are going to have their packed lunches confiscated?

Throughout the Brexit negotiations, the same pattern has repeated itself. Many countries – Germany, the Netherlands, and Italy among them – have sought to cool the rhetoric, to reach beyond their disappointment at the Brexit vote – while Mr Macron, and of course Michel Barnier, have ratcheted up the language. The French president is desperate that Brexit be seen to be a disaster because he fears otherwise that even more of his compatriots will be drawn into the arms of Marine Le Pen in the next presidential elections in 2022.

Yet it is extremely difficult for the EU or the French government to punish UK citizens without also annoying their own. I have a feeling the French lorry drivers – many of whom are surely gilets jaunes in their spare time – won’t forget their unwanted stay on a hard shoulder in Kent next time they take to the barricades.