If there is no deal this week, it will be thanks to Macron the Machiavellian 

In chess, an endgame is often decided by a single move, or “tempo”. Either Black blockades his opponent, or White breaks through: time and space are delicately balanced. The Brexit endgame is no different. Last week the French President, Emmanuel Macron, staged a dramatic intervention, making new demands just as the talks between the EU’s Michel Barnier and the UK’s David Frost were “in the landing stage”. 

Over the weekend, Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, has been drawn into the discussion in the hope that she can rein in the French. But the British are now under pressure to make new concessions as the de facto deadline — the EU summit on Thursday — approaches. Both sides desperately need a deal, but not at any price. If the negotiations fail, each will blame the other.

It was always likely that Macron would lean on Barnier, whose loyalty to Paris is at least as strong as to Brussels. And the French “Jupiter” has a habit of picking his moment to descend from the clouds. Yet this particular deus ex machina stunt risks damaging not only British but Continental interests too. Will this be the last time that we celebrate Christmas by giving one another Chanel or Hermés, toasting with Champagne or gorging on Camembert and Époisses, washed down with claret and burgundy? It all depends on the theatre of French domestic politics, a never-ending drama in which Macron is fighting for his life.

The background may be briefly summarised, but is fiendishly complicated. Unlike Britain, where battles are waged in Parliament, in France they are fought out in the streets. Two years ago, the yellow vest protests nearly brought Macron down. Having grandiosely called the electoral vehicle that brought him to power La République En Marche!, the President found that much of France was marching against him. Since then, his party — not so much a coalition as a collage of Left and Right, glued together only by the charisma of its leader — has steadily fragmented. The little prince had forgotten the advice of his master, Machiavelli: avoid being hated and always have the people, not the nobility, on your side.

Then came a new wave of terrorism. Macron saw his chance. He has cracked down on foreign funding for mosques and imams, on home schooling, on the “ecosystem” of political Islam. The new word for Islamists is “separatists”. The French are proud of laïcité, the secularist doctrine that embodies their “universal”, “Republican” values and associate multiculturalism with “Anglo-Saxons”. Even the official Muslim community representatives go along with this line, though not the disaffected youth.

Macron’s campaign has been controversial abroad, but popular at home. Apart, that is, for one key measure: the new security law. This includes a ban on filming police officers if the intention is hostile. The gendarmerie fear being targeted by terrorists. But in the eyes of the liberal intelligentsia, this gives les flics unwarranted immunity from scrutiny. An ugly incident in which a black citizen was beaten up by police for not wearing a face mask has provoked an outcry. For the past fortnight, it has not been farmers or lorry drivers marching on Paris, but les Bobos — the bourgeois bohemians. This is a serious matter for Macron. He can afford to alienate the Left, because his main rival is Marine Le Pen. He hopes to woo her vote by a tough policy on law and order. But he cannot lose the centrist core of his party. So now he needs a diversion to take the heat out of the crisis. 

A new, unifying enemy is required — and who better to betray than less Anglais, whom tout le monde knows to be perfidious? “A promise given was a necessity of the past,” wrote Machiavelli. “The word broken is a necessity of the present.” Whether or not there is a deal this week, some French fishermen will lose out. Let public opinion blame the bloody-minded British and their Brexit. Machiavelli again: “One who deceives will always find those who allow themselves to be deceived.” A docile media can be relied on not to finger the real culprit: their own President.

Macron’s cynicism is breathtaking, but it makes sense from his point of view. If there is a compromise this week, he can take credit for it. But for his démarche, the EU Commission would have settled for a deal less favourable to the French. If there is no deal, he can claim that he refused to let Brussels sacrifice French interests. Either way, he cuts the ground from under the nationalist Right, while still posing as the champion of Europe.

Many commentators have compared Macron to de Gaulle, whom he admires and who famously wielded his veto against the British. Yet de Gaulle was a devout Catholic, for whom politics was a matter of morality and whose faith guided his actions. Macron’s master is, rather, Niccolò Machiavelli, who declared that politics had nothing to do with morality and whose purpose was to challenge the influence of Christianity, thereby destroying the power of the Church. As an undergraduate at the University of Nanterre, young Emmanuel Macron wrote his dissertation on Machiavelli. To call Macron his disciple is hardly an exaggeration. 

Anyone who wants to understand the conduct of the French leadership in sabotaging the Brexit trade deal that came so close to fruition last week should read The Prince. Macron knows that not only the British but Europeans too who depend on cross-Channel trade will never forgive him. Yet he obeys his master’s voice: it is better to be feared than to be loved. Europe is now led by Macron the Machiavellian. Boris, beware.

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