John Keiger

The French gently mocked the pop-singer Petula Clarke on French media in the 1970s for her contortions about her heart being English but her soul French, or was it the reverse? But however much the British metropolitan classes may cloy to France as a mythical ‘world they have lost’, the French perceive the Franco-British relationship very differently. Competition is the watchword. And it is sharp. General de Gaulle the most acute of politicians and contriving of historians remarked, when French policy in the 1960s called for Britain to be rejected from the Common Market: ‘Our hereditary enemy, it was not Germany, but England.

President Macron neither lacks chutzpah nor a lust for drama. His walkabout yesterday amid the devastation of Lebanon’s Beirut, following the massive chemical explosion that killed over 150, wounded 5000 and razed a whole section of the city, evoked David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia with Macron as the strutting Peter O’Toole denouncing the factionalism that had thwarted the unity of the Arab peoples.  ‘I am here… to launch a new political initiative’ Macron intoned before shell-shocked crowds baying for a change of regime. ‘I expect clear answers from the Lebanese authorities about their commitments.

On Wednesday, the new French Prime Minister Jean Castex made his general policy statement to the National Assembly. We know things are getting serious in France because the new Prime Minister was wearing a proper suit: charcoal-grey, well-cut, elegant. No more of the boyband blue drainpipe little numbers sported by his predecessor, tailored to Macron’s foppish programme of France as a ‘start-up nation’. Castex’s audience of face-masked députés – including the communists to the left of him, wearing bright red face coverings – barracked him throughout.

Picture the greatest French criminal barrister of his generation with the physique and cantankerousness of Rumpole-of-the-Bailey and the media-strutting ‘blokishness’ of Nigel Farage. Just imagine this 59-year-old son of an Italian cleaning-lady, great orator, defender of all-comers – including in his own words ‘the gypsy who has just disembowelled an old lady to steal her 40 euros’ – as one of the most outspoken and fiercest critics of France’s highly politicised and insulated caste of judges and examining magistrates. Meet then, the new French minister of justice.

His name is unknown, but resonates like that of a character from Astérix the Gaul. Jean Castex is France’s new prime minister, with a government reshuffle to follow. In ridding himself of the stolid and popular Edouard Philippe, Emmanuel Macron is playing his last hand in the presidential poker game to reset his troubled presidency. In fact Macron has appointed Edouard Philippe’s double. Castex, like his predecessor when first appointed to Matignon is unknown among the public, but an enarque, technocrat, top civil servant, member of the conservative Parti Républicain, with a foot in local mayoralty.

The clock is ticking for Emmanuel Macron. He has under two years of his presidential mandate to carry out his programme, much of which has been in suspended animation since before even Covid. In reality, it is much less than two years if one subtracts campaigning for the presidentials in May-June 2022, or even the regional and departmental elections in March 2021.  With a forelock tipped to Napoleon, the media are calling it his ‘500 days’, or more cerebrally In Search of Lost Time. Never in the history of the 5th Republic has one of its eight presidents spent so much time crisis managing. With two thirds of his mandate gone and half of that spent fire-fighting (yellow-vests, pension strikes, coronavirus) time is his most precious commodity.

Emmanuel Macron never misses an historical opportunity to emblazon his banner. One is reminded of the nineteenth century diplomat Talleyrand whose ulterior motives were so notorious that on learning of the Frenchman’s death the Austrian statesman Metternich enquired nervously ‘What did he mean by that?’  Tomorrow, president Macron will be in London – exempted of quarantine – hosted by Prince Charles for the 80th anniversary of General de Gaulle’s appel du 18 juin that began resistance against Nazi occupation and Marshal Pétain’s collaborationist government. Why in the teeth of the Covid epidemic has the French president, who has cancelled all foreign visits since February, chosen to fly to London to award the city the Legion of Honour?

Last week the New York Times praised President Macron’s management of Covid-19 and asked why the French were not impressed. None were more surprised by the article than the French media, who were at least pleased by the external praise. Perhaps the Times’s off-beam musings can be put down to its internecine distractions, for the French picture is very different on serious inspection. Other than the publicly acknowledged failings of inadequate preparation in terms of masks, ventilators, emergency beds and testing, there is the crucial issue of the economic impact, which the NYT didn’t even discuss. With media attention focused on the economic effects of Covid-19 on Italian and Spanish debt levels, France’s economy is often overlooked.

The fourth round of official Brexit negotiations resumed on Tuesday, screen-to-screen. They will determine whether the stalemate can be broken and a trade deal sealed by the end of the transition date of 31 December. By mid-June, a high-level 'stock-take' between Boris Johnson and Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will assess whether sufficient progress has been made to continue negotiations.  Such is not the case thus far, according to recent public utterances from Michel Barnier and David Frost, who has claimed 'very little progress'. Just like in Endgame, Samuel Beckett’s tragicomedy, a sense of hopelessness pervades the final scene of the drama. In the play – as with Brexit – the characters await deliverance while nothing, in fact, happens.

Coronavirus is obscuring much about the future of the EU – and Britain’s relationship with it. Not everyone is joining the dots, but business is. And this means the decision for a no-deal Brexit is being taken outside of the official negotiations. Nissan unveiled its global restructuring this week after making a £5 billion net loss in the last financial year. It will close its Barcelona factory with a loss of 2,800 jobs while the Spanish government has said this was the end of Nissan’s manufacturing in Europe. And so it is if Europe means the EU. For Nissan also announced that the future of its UK plant in Sunderland was secure. Why is this significant?

Why does president Macron want European debt mutualisation? Why has France become the spokesman for the ‘southern states’ on a European rescue package? Why did the French finance minister punch the air on learning that 500 billion euros (£440bn) EU funding had been agreed on 9 April? There are three reasons. First because France's soaring national debt, its floundering economy and its remarkably generous coronavirus rescue package are lining France up for an Italian style sovereign debt crisis.  Second, because ideologically Macron believes that Europe must integrate further or shrivel.

Last week, Britain and France were treated to an avalanche of financial statistics jostling with the macabre daily litany of Covid casualty numbers. All are premised on a V-shaped recovery in which the severity and rapidity of the Covid recession is matched by a rapid bounce back. But the French above all should be aware of a historical parallel that suggests caution regarding the V-shaped recovery. But first the size of the problem. In Britain, the Office for Budget Responsibility produced the most pessimistic scenario for the British economy compared to those of KPMG, Morgan Stanley and the OECD. Based on a three-month lockdown it projects a 2020/21 budget deficit of 14 per cent falling back to a 2.