According to NPR, France and Britain haven’t sounded like allies lately. It seems there’s been a series of disputes between them since Brexit. And observers say the country’s two leaders simply don’t understand each other. Some joke that the relationship hasn’t been this bad since the Battle of Waterloo. According to SCIS, every dispute, from sausages to submarines, threatens the bilateral relationship between these countries. At this time, London and Paris have many shared strategic challenges ahead. Therefore, they should be strengthening their security and defence partnership. Are the Issues between France and Britain resolvable?
Issues between France and Britain
The submarine episode proves London’s “permanent opportunism” for Paris, according to the Atlantic. AUKUS shows Britain’s preference for partnership with the United States rather than France.
In the French view, Boris Johnson’s attempts to build a “Global Britain” outside the European Union shows his disloyalty to France. And for Britain, in turn, Paris’s reaction to AUKUS just exposes France’s latent anti-American prejudice.
France and Britain seem to act as a distorting mirror for the other. They block a good view of each other.
The fierceness of the criticism between Paris and the UK is undeniable.
According to the Guardian, some tensions built up over five years of ill-tempered Brexit negotiations. These tensions have become worse because of a series of other disagreements. Some of these disagreements are related to the UK’s departure from the EU.
Another issue is Britain’s decision to impose tighter Covid travel restrictions on France than other EU countries. These restrictions, which happened this summer, face resentment in Paris. French government considered it as unjustified discrimination and assumed that it was politically motivated. Yet another issue is about the longstanding problem of migrant crossings in small craft from France to the UK. It made the French angry.
Issues between France and Britain: Reasons
The issues between France and Britain seem to have political reasons. According to The New York Times, Britain and France have conflicted since Britain left the EU. They have quarrelled over the safety of a British coronavirus vaccine. They have also fought over a submarine alliance that united Britain, Australia and the United States.
Domestic politics is playing a role. For Prime Minister Boris Johnson, ginning up a cross-channel dispute appeals to his pro-Brexit base. Such disputes are a noisy distraction in a season of fuel and food shortages. For President Emmanuel Macron, the tensions are helpful in his efforts for re-election in France. Emmanuel Macron given faces a challenge from the nationalist right.
Improving Relations with France
Undoubtedly, there are issues between France and Britain. However, they may need to cooperate because of their similar goals and concerns. According to the Atlantic, France and Britain are not entirely opposed. They are more equal than perhaps any other two countries on Earth. They are similar in population, wealth, imperial past, global reach, and democratic tradition. Moreover, they are identical in fear of decline, an instinct for national independence, desire for respect. They are both worried over the growing power of countries such as be the United States, Germany, or China.
David Manning, the former UK ambassador to Washington, writes in Financial Times, first, we must rebuild confidence with France. He says that the two European nuclear powers can work closely with the most potent military forces. We should consider a new bilateral relationship agreement, pulling together present contracts. The two Lancaster House Agreements of 2010 remain in force. The first commits the UK and France to joint exercises and training, work together on military policy, etc. David Manning adds that London and Paris could work together with Germany. There is also scope for further nuclear cooperation.
The second Lancaster House Treaty provides for bilateral cooperation on nuclear issues. As the threat of proliferation grows, there are more things that France and Britain can do together.
According to POLITICO, French EU Affairs Minister Clément Beaune connected the problems to the mistrust of the Brits. “But we see it with Brexit, we see it with the AUKUS project, we need trust”. He added, “we need to rebuild confidence; we need to discuss together”.
He told reporters, “we are not in this context at the moment, but we hope we can reach it”.
Britain rebuilds confidence with France: It is unlikely.
There have been issues between France and Britain. The reason is that Britain does not seem to be a country that you can depend on. According to the Guardian, “They’re as bad as I can remember,” said Peter Ricketts. Ricketts was Britain’s ambassador to France from 2012 to 2016. “My sense is the French have just totally lost confidence in the UK as an ally”. He believes that France has lost confidence in the British government and cannot depend on it.
Sylvie Bermann was France’s ambassador to Britain from 2014 to 2017. Bermann says that Franco-British relations have never been so tense and so hostile. In Paris, there is an absolute absence of trust. The French feel that Britain no longer honours the agreements that it signs.
According to CSIS, cooperation in Europe’s security could be at risk if tensions between Paris and London grows. Moreover, the French-British defence partnership is standing still rather than moving forward.
According to The Economist, it seems that even tragedy cannot bring Britain and France together. Twenty refugees died in the English Channel trying to cross in a boat from the northern French coast to Britain. It looked like tensions between the British prime minister, Boris Johnson, and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, might ease. However, there was no ease of tensions. This is because behind the row about migrants lies a fundamental problem: the two neighbours are separated by a narrow water channel and a big of mutual distrust.
