Emmanuel macron

Once upon a time, the insolence demonstrated by Emmanuel Macron in his fish war with the United Kingdom would have been met with a firmer response than inviting the French ambassador to the Foreign Office for a chat. Bombarding the ramparts of Saint-Malo hardly seems on the menu today, however – even were our navy capable. Boris Johnson has promised to do ‘whatever is necessary’ to protect British vessels but threatening ‘rigorous checks’ on French boats is as feeble as it is improbable, given that the Royal Navy has just eight small boats patrolling 756,000 square kilometres (300,000 square miles) of water, almost four times the surface area of Great Britain. It’s akin to two police cars patrolling all of England, Scotland and Wales.

During the now virtually forgotten cod wars between Iceland and the United Kingdom from 1958 to 1976, the diminutive foreign office official Sir Donald Maitland invited to King Charles Street for a dressing down the Icelandic Ambassador, a 6’7” Nordic giant. When the ambassador arrived, Sir Donald climbed on to his massive desk, drew himself up to be eye-to-eye with his visitor and declared: ‘I have been instructed to deliver this from the highest level.’ The moral of this story is, if you wish to avoid seeming ridiculous, avoid fish wars. Ultimately, little is at stake. Outcomes are frequently embarrassing. There will inevitably be terrible tabloid jokes about herrings and floundering, et cetera ad infinitum.

Michel Barnier is running for president of France as a Eurosceptic. He’s talking about pulling back powers to the French state and installing ‘a sovereign shield’ to allow France to impose its own immigration policy. But he’s about as credible as a vegan crocodile. Barnier was at the scene of the crime when the French voted (by a 55 per cent majority) in 2005 to reject the treaty establishing a new European constitution. In a great betrayal of democracy, voters were simply ignored and the government signed the document anyway, relabeled as the Lisbon Treaty.

No one really expects Michel Barnier to be chosen as the Républicains's candidate for the French presidency. Success in Brussels does not make it easier to win at home. The most famous example of this rule is Martin Schulz, who returned from a long career in Brussels to become German SPD leader and chancellor candidate in 2017. He was seen as a political curiosity partly because he was unknown. But he couldn't keep up the momentum after German voters saw him on the domestic stage. Brussels insiders become detached from what's going on at home. It is much easier to go to Brussels than it is to come back. But don't write Barnier off just yet. He remained more connected to French politics than Schulz was to Germany.

Eric Zemmour, a right-wing French essayist, has had a stellar rise in the media and public opinion. He has now reached 17 per cent in the latest Harris Interactive poll for the first round if he were to run as a candidate. After Macron’s ascent to power from nowhere only five years ago, will Zemmour become the Donald Trump of French politics? It looks unlikely. Zemmour certainly hit a raw nerve with his anti-immigrant theme, but whether he can dominate the campaign will depend on events outside of his control. If the voters' concern turns towards the energy crisis and purchasing power, Zemmour would be without an offer.

Today France is outraged. First, explicitly because Australia has broken a large contract to have a French company design their submarines and for that contract to be switched to a US-UK substitute. Secondly, sotto voce, because Emmanuel Macron’s Indo-Pacific strategy has been shaken by an Australian, American and British strategic agreement entitled Aukus, to which France has not been invited. What are the facts of the matter? In 2016 Australia signed a contract with France to buy 12 conventional French-designed diesel-electric submarines for the Australian navy. The contract worth €35 billion was badged by the French as ‘the contract of the century’. In reality, only €8 billion was to go to the 60 per cent state-owned French company Naval Group.

In a big speech yesterday, Macron presented himself in almost Nixonian terms as guardian of law and order. He said he would rewrite the penal code and double the number of police on the streets. But only if he’s re-elected. He further promised at least ten specific security measures and €500 million in additional spending. Ever the triangulator, he mixed hard with soft — promising also a parliamentary oversight body to clamp down on police brutality. Nobody can accuse Macron of lacking policies, though they’re mostly more show than go. His attempt to co-opt the security agenda is thus far merely rhetorical.

Anne Hidalgo, the socialist mayor of Paris, whose reign has submerged the city in debt and rubbish, is the latest no-hoper to declare her candidacy for the 2022 presidential election. She’s in fifth place in the polls, although these are rarely credible at this stage and currently ignore several candidates for reasons that seem obscure. Hidalgo, the daughter of Spanish immigrants, is to run on a platform of social justice. She says she is doing so with humility, although this is not a characteristic that has so far been evident in her personality. Ruthless ambition comes closer.  It is rather obvious that Hidalgo has zero chance of finishing in the top two of the first round of voting next April.

To nobody’s great surprise, France’s Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, announced last week that the Covid Passport may have to be extended beyond 15 November – the initial expiry date of the government’s controversial measure, first introduced in July. I’ll hazard a guess that come April 2022 the French will still have to show their passport to enter cafes, shopping centres, sports clubs and cinemas. April, of course, is the date of the presidential election and Emmanuel Macron is banking on his response to Covid helping him to secure a second term. His belief is that the electorate, particularly the over-50s, will be reluctant to change presidents in the midst of a pandemic. Better the devil, and all that.

The French President Emmanuel Macron has, it is revealed, forbidden all talk at the Elysée of the forthcoming presidential election and has refused to discuss even whether he will be a candidate. His entire attention is focused on France and the French, he claims. Of course this is entirely the opposite of the truth as his entire attention is focused on being re-elected. Nevertheless, he was likely to have been opening a bottle of something sparkling in which to dip his croissant this morning with the announcement that Michel Barnier, yet another no-hoper, has thrown his beret into the ring to oppose him. Divide and conquer seems to be Macron’s strategy.

How we all hollered with outrage in May when Emmanuel Macron closed France’s borders to people arriving from Britain on the dubious basis that Britons, and Britons alone, were in danger of infecting France with the Indian variant. I believed, and I still believe, that Macron and his government were in part motivated by Brexit — it was part of our ongoing punishment for daring to vote to leave the EU. It certainly wasn’t justified on scientific grounds: if Briton had more recorded Indian variant (or Delta) cases than other European countries at the time it was largely thanks to more samples of Covid being sequenced here. Some countries, France included, were not analysing more than a tiny fraction of cases.