The French take on Britain’s role as leader of the EU’s awkward squad

As Britain prepares to leave the European Union – at some point – the role it once played is increasingly being taken up by France. At first glance this seems counter-intuitive. Prior to Brexit Britain and France were the major powers most likely to find themselves at odds. France favoured a smaller more tightly integrated EU. The UK pushed for expansion, partly to sabotage this in favour of a more market-oriented vision of the EU. France’s priorities seem not to have changed much since then. President Macron hoped to use the new European Commission nominations to push an integrationist agenda to save the EU project, and vetoed moves that would have put Albania and North Macedonia on the path to EU accession.

However, France and the UK also always had some subtle similarities in their approach to the EU. Vitally, both saw the EU as a tool to extend the national interest, not a way to subsume it. Britain entered the European project in search of opportunities for British business. French politicians saw the European project as a way to extend French influence and shore up its declining global profile. This contrasted with the attitude of the other major power, Germany, which was keenest on the potential of the EU as an alternative to the nation state due to its horror of nationalism and its own past.

Still this difference between France and Germany did not manifest strongly in policy terms. In practise it meant both favoured integration. As Germany was reluctant to take a leading role meaning France felt content that it usually got its way. The result was a sort of Franco-German entente about the direction of the EU project while the UK acted as an outrider only able to get its way by playing on divisions between them, as it did on expansion, or by rallying smaller powers like the Scandinavian or newly acceded Eastern European states to its cause. The UK in essence acted as the EU’s loyal, or perhaps in retrospect disloyal, opposition questioning and sometimes even blocking the EU’s ruling consensus.

As the UK looks set to leave it increasingly seems France will be taking on this role. In many ways this builds on developments that began with the Eurocrisis. As the Euro threatened to disintegrate only Germany had sufficient economic and fiscal resources to provide the necessary funding to stabilise it. In doing so it took on a leadership role it had long shied away from, not least as it was reluctant to pony up and wanted to ensure bailout was paired with austerity and tight monetary policy. France which was far from fiscally disciplined itself and at times even feared the crisis would spread to itself. As such it became an advocate on behalf of southern Europe against austerity for looser monetary policy.

With Britain uninvolved by virtue of having retained it own currency France seemed to take over Britain’s traditional role of rallying smaller EU members against accepted EU policy, even if Britain itself was more sympathetic to the German position in this instance. In this role it even enjoyed some success.

The French approved of Mario Draghi presidency of the European Central Bank. He so succeeded in outraging Germans with his quantitative easing and negative interest rates. Two former German ECB board members signed a letter publicly condemning Draghi’s policy.

It looks like France will continue to develop this role. The former French finance minister and IMF chief Christine Lagarde has just assumed the ECB presidency, and has long advocated approaches in line with Draghi’s. France’s vetoing of further expansion also puts it in the position of the EU’s chief dissenter. It was backed in its decisions by Denmark and the Netherlands. This was a move that would in the past have probably been initiated by the UK. British governments facing voters worried by migration from Eastern Europe might well have balked at further expansion, despite previously favouring it. Notably Denmark and the Netherlands were traditionally UK allies within the EU. France led the way instead.

France, it turns out, could be the new Britain.