View from London: “I’m Anglo-French, and I’m sickened by the state of my countries”

Pic.: ‘The Telegraph’

Here is a stunning example of the assessment of the “cordial agreement” (Entente) between England and France in the 21st century. The visit of the French President Macron caused a number of scandals – for example, King Charles III was unhappy that the Frenchman did not speak English in front of him. And here is a publication in the London newspaper ‘The Telegraph’ signed by Allister Heath, a French-British business journalist, author and commentator. In general – “high relations”...

As their nations spiral into decline, weakling Starmer and pompous Macron are posing as great statesmen…

Goodbye Britain, land of Churchill, individual liberty, the Industrial Revolution and the abolition of slavery; au revoir France, home of de Gaulle, meritocracy, rationalism and 365 kinds of cheese.Two glorious countries, divided by a common history.

Bonjour instead to the dystopian nightmare of Frangletterre, a couple of  failed states for the price of one, both locked into an economic, cultural and social doom spiral.

Having diverged in the 1980s and 1990s, France and Britain are converging again, despite Brexit, copying each other’s worst pathologies, from high tax to wokery, from fiscal incontinence to bad food: the only question is which implodes first.

Sir Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron are doing their best to win that race with their idiotic, destructive and nihilistic policies, but it will go down to the wire. Both nations are drastically diminished, their armed forces cut back to the bone, their geopolitical retreat accelerating (in Britain’s case with the Chagos fiasco, in France’s its expulsion from Africa), their economies barely growing, their industries hollowed out, their welfare states horrendously expensive.

The state visit has proved to be a pathetic jamboree, a tragic spectacle where the feeblest of hosts (Starmer) has encouraged the most pompous of guests (Macron) to cosplay great power politics, to lecture us on Brexit, on the case for anti-Americanism, on our failings over immigration and even on recognising a state of Palestine. Even Macron’s inevitable philosophy lesson was a mangling of intellectual history, conflating the Scottish and French enlightenments, what Hayek called real and false individualism.

The French President was right that Britain must do a lot more to tackle the demand-side factors attracting illegal immigration to the UK, but he was also guilty of staggering hypocrisy. Why doesn’t France deport all of its illegal migrants? Why allow them to live in illicit tent cities? Why implicitly share in the lie, for the purposes of asylum, that France isn’t a “safe” state?

Macron would rather illegal migrants didn’t gather in Calais, but he doesn’t care enough to do anything meaningful about it (the puncturing of a migrant boat last week was a publicity-friendly one off). The one in, one out plan will most likely fail; the pilot will be too small to change the calculus of immigrants or people smugglers.

Macron played our useless negotiators beautifully after Brexit and during Covid, threatening and bullying us. Instead of fighting back, which is what a proper self-respecting country would have done, we kept turning the other cheek, and now Starmer is surrendering on all fronts, handing over fisheries and cash. The forthcoming “youth” mobility sell-out will be especially toxic: it will become a source of mass immigration by stealth.

The Franco-British convergence will see both sides adopt the worst ideas and attitudes of the other. Take strikes: resident doctors are demanding a 29 per cent pay rise, less than a year after they were handed 22 per cent. Consider law and order: our courts system is so overwhelmed that Labour might suspend trials by jury, a typically British safeguard.

Macron has racked up massive deficits and an unsustainable debt. Starmer is on the case: the OBR has warned that “the scale and array of risks to the UK fiscal outlook remains daunting”. The UK’s debt has risen by 24 per cent of GDP over the past 15 years and by 60 per cent over the past 20. The UK is now saddled with the sixth-highest debt, fifth-highest deficit, and third-highest borrowing costs among 36 advanced economies; once a paragon of virtue, we are now in France’s league of horrors.

For years now, France has struggled with the integration of immigrants, the rise of Islamism and the scourge of anti-semitism. Despite our own, massive problems, Britain used to have a better record, but we are now going the way of France. The share of immigrants in the population of England and Wales has hit 16.8 per cent, against 10.3 per cent in France.

The decline and fall of the UK and France, two wonderful countries whose fate is inextricably linked, is one of the tragedies of our times. I am a citizen of both Britain and France, so I feel the pain especially deeply. For the sake of all of us who care, let us hope it isn’t already too late.

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