Macron’s blockade is fishy: our nations have a future as well as a past
(Justin Tallis ABACAPRESS.COM)
It was predictable that one consequence of Brexit would be an unseemly Franco-British clash over access to territorial waters. “It is not a war, it is a fight,” one French minister proclaims. No, it is more of a squabble over stinking fish and empty seas. Fish wars are pointless when the real problem is overfishing. There simply aren’t enough fish in the ocean to satisfy the hungry diners of Paris and London.
President Macron’s motives are, well, fishy. He may find arresting fishermen to be a useful electioneering tactic, but the politics ought not to distract us from the illegality of this and other punitive policies. The fact is that Macron is behaving like Putin in order to force the British to grant even more concessions to French fishermen. The fact that Boris Johnson is not the only one with a cavalier attitude to international law seems lost on the EU. Or is sauce for the British goose not also sauce for the French gander?
All that a cross-Channel trade war will achieve is to impoverish one another. There are already too many trawlers in both fishing fleets and trade is already falling due to post-Brexit red tape. A rational solution would be to hand the dispute over to arbitration. But there is nothing rational about an election campaign in which politicians think it normal to rant about the martyrdom of the Maid of Orléans six centuries ago, or threaten to cut off electricity supplies to their neighbours in the Channel Islands. So far, apart from Liz Truss summoning the French ambassador, the British have sensibly refused to retaliate. But if Emmanuel Macon insists on a Napoleonic blockade, he will find that he ends up with thousands of angry winemakers and other exporters on the streets of Paris, demanding to know what became of their markets in l’Angleterre. Banging on about Joan of Arc won’t make up for sales lost, perhaps permanently, to the English vineyards that are now flourishing as they once did in medieval times.
Underlying this ancient Anglo-French rivalry, which resurfaces periodically only to be submerged again by mutual self-interest, is the competition between Europe’s two oldest nation states. France has been a distinct entity since at least the foundation of the Capetian dynasty in the 10th century, though its origins go back to the Frankish dynasty of the Merovingians in the 5th century. The English also emerged from the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of the same period, united under Alfred the Great in the ninth century. The first man to call himself King of England was Athelstan in the tenth century, a couple of generations before Hugh Capet, though the first to call himself King of France was Philip II Augustus, who defeated King John of England at Bouvines and reconquered most of the Angevin empire. Both England and France have had centralised administrations for much longer than other large European states, most of which emerged between the 15th and 19th centuries. Our national identities are correspondingly more deeply rooted than most others — yet we are the only two major nations in Europe to have seriously considered a merger.
In June 1940, when the Germans had already occupied much of France and the Dunkirk evacuation of British and French forces had just taken place, Winston Churchill’s War Cabinet proposed a “Franco-British Union”, with the support of the French Prime Minister, Paul Reynaud, and Charles de Gaulle, who had just arrived in London. The proposal was stillborn, due to the opposition of most of the French government, including Marshal Pétain, who preferred an armistice with Nazi Germany to a continuation of the war. Even though De Gaulle later repudiated the idea, a Franco-British Union made sense at the time and in some respects it was reincarnated during the four decades when the UK belonged to the EU. The British and French shared European citizenship and important parts of their sovereignty, including fishing rights. Just because the British voted to leave a union of 27 states, some of which are geographically or culturally remote, does not mean that they do not value their close and mutually beneficial relationship with France. For President Macron to wreck that relationship for the sake of party politics is as petty as it is unworthy of a great people. If and when he is re-elected, perhaps Boris Johnson could make a grand gesture of reconciliation: a latter-day Field of the Cloth of Gold, perhaps. The two leaders are unlikely to enjoy a wrestling match, like Henry VIII and Francis I, but they could perhaps sublimate their differences over a game of boules.
After all, the British and the French don’t just have a uniquely colourful past in common: we also have a future. Neither of us is going anywhere. According to a report by Agathe Demarais of the Economist Intelligence Unit, in 2020 the top of the world’s GDP pecking order had the UK in fifth and France in seventh place. By 2050, the UK will still be fifth and France in eighth place. Germany will still have a bigger economy than either, although by a much smaller margin. The rankings are mainly determined by demography and productivity. Predictions of decline are mistaken: for the foreseeable future Germany, the UK and France will still be the three biggest economies of Europe, plus major global players. Union may be too much to expect from such proudly independent nation states, but can’t we just rub along together, not just without wars, but also without “fights” or blockades?
A Message from TheArticle
We are the only publication that’s committed to covering every angle. We have an important contribution to make, one that’s needed now more than ever, and we need your help to continue publishing throughout the pandemic. So please, make a donation.
