Emmanuel Macron goes to Washington

The French and Americans are closer than they care to admit

Emmanuel Macron can be forgiven a measure of pointed satisfaction. Boris Johnson got a no-frills meeting at the White House accompanied by a ticking off about Northern Ireland from Joe Biden. Rishi Sunak is waiting for a reply to his request for an audience in Washington. The French president is set to enjoy days of pomp and fanfare as Biden’s honoured guest during a full-blown state visit.

In the aftermath of the 1956 Suez debacle, France opted to make its future in Europe while Britain chose what Churchill had called the special relationship. More recently, the Tory party’s Brexiters hoped that, by leaving the European Union, Britain could rekindle the flame of Atlanticism and reinvent the Anglosphere. Apparently, no-one told them that the US viewed a UK that had wielded clout in Europe as the more valuable ally.

As was predictable to anyone who prioritised Britain’s national interests over obsessions about notional sovereignty, the Brexit rupture has left the UK on the sidelines in Washington. Germany and France are the players that count for the Biden administration, the more so since Vladimir Putin’s aggression in Ukraine. And with doubts in the White House about the direction of German policy under chancellor Olaf Scholz, Macron emerges as the pivotal figure.

A year ago, the Aukus security pact between the US and the UK saw Canberra cancel a lucrative order for French submarines in favour of a US design. The French were enraged, and volubly so. Macron’s state visit could be seen as part of Biden’s apology. We know that Macron will enjoy the limelight. And Biden no doubt will welcome him as the leader of the European nation that came to America’s aid in 1778. 

This is not to anticipate a perfect meeting of minds. The two leaders look at the world through different lenses. France, like Britain, often struggles to leave behind the  pretensions born of empire. Asserting independence from the US runs in the blood, and Macron displays more than a streak of Gaullism.

When the French president talks about achieving greater strategic autonomy for Europe he is voicing the familiar French lament about European reliance on the US. In the same tradition, he sees a special place for France in managing the west’s relationships with Russia and China.

There are practical differences also. Biden’s green agenda, wrapped up in the curiously named Inflation Reduction Act, is viewed in Europe generally and France in particular as an overt act of protectionism. Politicians in Washington complain that they are doing the heavy lifting in providing military and financial aid to Volodymyr Zelensky’s government in Kyiv, but Macron is far from alone in noting how much American business gains from soaring gas prices in Europe.

Disputes over trade are part of the warp and weft of the transatlantic relationship. What have sometimes seemed like big differences between Paris and Washington about Putin’s war in Ukraine have been more rhetorical than real. At the outset, Macron misread the Russian leader and, for a time, seemed too eager to nudge Kyiv into negotiations. It would be equally mistaken, however, to think that Biden is in the no-peace-until-Putin-is-crushed camp.

The differences in policy towards China can also be overdone. France may prefer to call Beijing a strategic competitor than an adversary, but Macron knows well that when it matters Europe will never choose China over the US.

Scratch the surface in Paris and there is a recognition that Europe will indeed rely on the US for its security for many decades yet. Do the same in Washington and what emerges is a  grudging admission that Americans cannot complain that Europeans are not doing enough to defend themselves and then criticise EU plans to develop its own military capabilities.  Macron and Biden have different constituencies to satisfy, but the signs are they recognise the fundamental identity of interest.

As for Britain’s Sunak, the prime minister gave his first big foreign policy speech this week. It offered a fair description of the more unpredictable and dangerous world the west must now navigate, said the right things about democracies sticking together, and was unflinching in its support for Ukraine. Missing was the strategic framework in which Britain can exercise influence and promote its interests. Brexit blew up the European pillar of its foreign policy. It is now apparent that the Conservatives’ persistent Europhobia has severely damaged the Atlantic support. All that’s left is Johnson’s sorry slogan: Global Britain.