Brexit fishing row: France’s cynicism is pure de Gaulle
Harold Macmillan was once present at a meeting between Winston Churchill and Charles de Gaulle. The two principals went into a smaller room for a bilateral. Immediately, Macmillan heard raised voices. They grew louder, and louder still. Suddenly, Churchill’s face appeared round the door. “Harold, quickly, tell me: what is the opposite of ‘Vive la France?’”.
Boris Johnson must understand that feeling. For once, our Prime Minister is entitled to occupy the moral high ground. Guided by a Gaulliste political elite, “that sweet enemy, France” is behaving cynically, dishonestly – and in character. Long before wokery, a lot of Gaullistes, not least the General himself, had discovered cancel culture and sought to promote amnesia where historical truth was inconvenient.
In 1940, as France was falling, de Gaulle arrived in London with £1,000 in gold. A junior General and a very junior Cabinet Minister, he claimed to speak for France: indeed, to embody France. Churchill, always a military romantic, bought his act. Later on, despite de Gaulle’s frequent impossible behaviour, Churchill did not yield to exasperation and indeed protected him from Roosevelt. Few if any other PMs would have behaved so generously. But de Gaulle, a stranger to the language of gratitude, never forgave him, or Britain.
After the liberation of Paris, in a speech whose magniloquence equals its mendacity, he made the preposterous claim that the city had liberated herself. There was one sole reference to the allies. Years later, he blocked our entry to the EU. There are two ways of interpreting that veto. It could be argued that he knew us better than we knew ourselves and realised that Britain would never settle down in a European community. But there is a more plausible explanation. France saw Europe as a means of simultaneously containing Germany and buttressing its own claim to superpower status. So it should be run by a French jockey on a German horse. As the British would never acquiesce in that, keep them out.
The French have always had one and a half eyes on Germany: hardly surprising given modern history. As German reunification came on to the agenda, President Mitterrand played a double game. In public, he was welcoming. In private conversations with Margaret Thatcher, he took an entirely different tone, inciting – and agreeing with – her Germanophobia, which hardly needed encouragement. That was not her finest hour. At moments, she even indulged the fantasy that although the Soviet empire would disintegrate, Germany could remain divided. This led Denis Healey to compare her to a bag-lady railing at a passing bus which had splashed her. That was ungallant. Then again, it was not unjustified. And anyway, she never sought to shelter behind gallantry.
Did Mitterrand really believe that she might prevent German unification? (Did Mitterrand really believe in anything?) He was surely too much of a realist for that.
More likely, he was trying to sabotage any possibility of an Anglo-German entente.
That would never have been easy to bring about. The chemistry between her and Chancellor Kohl was all wrong. Old King Kohl did his best, deploying what Douglas Hurd described as his elephantine friendliness and once trying to introduce her to stuffed pig’s stomach. No doubt it would have been taste-worthy, though hardly as delicious as the stuffed pigs’ trotters served by Bruno Loubet when he ran Tante Claire: a glorious dish, which cost about the price of a whole pig. But Herr Kohl’s stuffed stomach was never likely to appeal to Mrs T: merely to confirm her assessment that “Helmut is so German”.
It was a case of dog and cat. In this instance, the dog was well-disposed and would come bounding up to the pussy-cat, woof-woofing and wagging his tail, assuring her that he was merely trying to promote the Anglo-German feline-canine friendship society. He would be rewarded with a scratched nose.
Mitterrand was the last French President to have good relations with an English Prime Minister and there seems little chance that the language of the Entente Cordiale will be revived any time soon. It would be possible for both sides to come to an agreement on fish, for the sums involved are trivial: a little patch of fish, as it were. But in a further paraphrase of Hamlet, when votes are at the stake, no issue is trivial. It will be hard for Emmanuel Macron to be seen to have backed down, especially when some of his colleagues have been stoking the fires, wishing to punish Britain for Brexit. Are we talking about the EU, or Brezhnev’s Warsaw Pact? Thus far, Boris has been conciliatory. As has often been said, he has an unshakeable faith in his powers of charm. Moreover, with all eyes on Glasgow, it might be a good moment to slip a few trawlers under the radar. We shall see.
Eyes: perhaps it was also a good moment for the government to smuggle through an eye-watering increase in public spending. Almost everyone is agreed on one point. The Chancellor’s plans are crucially dependent on growth and he is placing faith in optimistic forecasts. If we can grow our way to recovery and if the money is spent wisely, Rishi Sunak is entitled to a cautious well and good. If: again, we shall see.
We have come a long way from a short period of economic calm after the 1987 election, when a useful phrase came briefly into fashion: Fabian Thatcherism. If, year on year, the Government were to spend a slightly smaller percentage of the nation’s income and own a slightly smaller percentage of its assets, there would be a healthy line of march towards stability and prosperity. Over a decade, those small percentages would gross up into useful sums.
Well, the ensuing decades had other ideas. As for this one, please forgive the repetition. We shall see.