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[...]Through the decades, governments in London have deployed all sorts of diplomatic chicanery to insert themselves between Paris and Berlin. Once or twice, on the principle that “if you can’t beat them, join them”, they have promoted the idea of an informal trilateral directorate in place of the Franco-German axis. The attempts failed, yet Britain’s presence in the EU provided, of itself, an element of balance. Post-Brexit, the union will look and feel quite different. Above all, the power imbalance between Berlin and Paris will be brutally exposed.
Alone among the big EU nations, Britain and France have global outlooks and interests. They have sizeable, deployable armed forces. History has left them with a national temperament at ease with venturing well beyond their own frontiers. France can do much with other EU partners to improve European defence. It cannot do anything serious without Britain.
Brexit will weaken Britain economically. The temptation will be to turn inwards. France would be a loser. The two nations have been travelling in the same, leaky boat — struggling to hold on to their claims to a global role against the claims of rising states, and constant pressure on national defence budgets. Their hold on permanent seats on the UN Security Council looks anachronistic. If Britain now falls overboard as a result of Brexit, France will find it that much harder to keep the vessel afloat.
Mr Macron likes to invite comparisons between his own leadership and that of de Gaulle. And it is true enough that the general’s decision to wield a veto now seems prescient. Britain would always be at best a halfhearted European, ever fearful of compromising its relations with the US, de Gaulle declared in January 1963. So it has proved, you might say, watching Mr Johnson cuddle up to Mr Trump.
Mr Macron, though, might also reflect that de Gaulle’s vision of a united Europe led by France and equal to the US has also been sorely disappointed. At some point, when the acrimony has dissipated, and the British have cleared their heads, Britain and France will need to find a way to get along again. Patience would then be repaid.
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