Tribune. Refusal to issue licenses to French fishermen in Jersey, boarding of a British trawler in Le Havre, summons of the French ambassador to London, threats of recourse to the courts and of a trade war: who could have imagined, there is still one year, that we would witness such a degradation of the Franco-British bilateral relationship, while we were celebrating the 10 years of the Lancaster House defense agreements signed in 2010 by David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy?
In part, these tensions can be explained by the role played by France during the Brexit negotiations and by the strategic choices of the Johnson government. Paris emerged as the most uncompromising member state during the endless negotiations on the withdrawal agreement and then on the new relations between the European Union (EU) and the United Kingdom, even if the president often did nothing but express openly what other heads of government thought, and even if the negotiations were led by Michel Barnier’s team and not by the Member States.
Emmanuel Macron, like Prime Minister Jean Castex, even in recent days, also clearly displayed, at that time, that leaving the EU had to have consequences and that a now third country could not hope to keep the same benefits. than a member state.
The good deal that prevailed before Brexit, already tarnished, disintegrated with the cooperation agreement signed with the EU in December 2020, which was well below what Theresa May – whose slogan we remember “Brexit means Brexit” (“Brexit means Brexit”) – had considered. Even though the fisheries and Irish border issues were supposed to be resolved, the agreement introduced customs controls on goods, ended the free movement of workers and re-established borders for people, and did not provide for any form institutionalized cooperation in foreign and defense policy. It was probably inevitable that such a retreat from the freedoms enjoyed by citizens and businesses on both sides of the Channel for more than 40 years would cause tension.
Since that date, bilateral disputes have accumulated, which add to the difficulties that the United Kingdom is encountering with the European Commission on the application of the Northern Irish protocol, without the usual diplomatic mechanisms for conflict management, in Brussels. and elsewhere, can function.
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