The French president, François Hollande, has warned that Britain cannot hang on to the advantages of EU membership after it leaves, saying his message to Britain is: “That’s not possible; the UK will become an outsider to the European Union.”
[...]Hollande said he regretted Britain’s decision to leave but stressed France’s long-held position that the UK could not exit the EU while holding on to any of the perks of membership. [...]
But Hollande said the government would not be able to find an alternative in relations with the US under Donald Trump. “The UK’s problem is this: it had thought that in leaving Europe it would tie up a strategic partnership with the US. But it now happens that the US is closing itself off from the world. The UK has made a bad choice at a bad moment. I regret that.”
Hollande is to host a mini-summit with the leaders of Germany, Spain and Italy in Versailles on Monday night to prepare the celebrations of the 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome. Those Rome celebrations – to take place without the UK on 25 March – will include a declaration on the future of the EU post-Brexit. Several options for the shape of the future of the bloc have been put on the table. Hollande said the option of having a “multi-speed” Europe, with different countries integrating at different levels, had been resisted for a long time but was now becoming a possibility. If not, he warned, Europe could break up. [...]
The rise of populist and Eurosceptic parties in several European countries has cast a shadow over future plans for the bloc. France’s far-right Front National leader Marine Le Pen, who wants France to quit the euro and has promised a referendum on France’s EU membership, is expected to reach the final round of the French presidential election in April and May. The French election race remains highly unpredictable. The independent centrist, Emmanuel Macron, is making gains in the polls while the scandal-hit rightwing candidate François Fillon is under pressure to stand down. The Socialist candidate, Benoît Hamon, who quit Hollande’s government in protest at pro-business reforms, faces a leftwing vote that is split with the hard-left Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
Asked about fears in some European capitals that Le Pen was a threat to the future of the EU project, Hollande said: “The threat exists. The far right has never been this high for 30 years. But France will not give in.” He said the French people were aware that their presidential election result would determine “not only the destiny of our country but also the very future of the European construction”.
He said all populists shared the objective of “leaving Europe, closing off from the world and conceiving a future surrounded by barriers of all kinds and borders defended by watch-towers. My ultimate duty is to do everything to stop France being convinced by such a project or taking on such a heavy responsibility.” [...]
Hollande said the EU must now show its people that it could defend its own commercial interests in the world and it had to speed up its decision-making process on urgent issues such as the refugee crisis and the eurozone. “Europe makes good decisions, but too late,” he said.
Hollande said Trump’s US election win both reinforced European nationalist and populist parties but also provided an opportunity for European progressive candidates to “clearly bring their projects to light”.
On the EU’s relationship with Russia, Hollande said [...] “If Europe is strong and united, Russia will want to keep a lasting and balanced relationship [with us]”. [...]
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