Britain should resist French pressure for a joint defence plan

On Friday President Emmanuel Macron welcomed Volodymyr Zelensky to the Elysée with great fanfare. The Ukrainian president was in Paris to sign a ten-year bilateral military agreement for France to supply and finance Kiev’s war effort and reconstruction, having already signed similar agreements with Britain and Germany. But behind Macron’s window dressing is France’s acute embarrassment at its low level of military support for Ukraine since the war began nearly two years ago.

According to Germany’s highly respected Kiel Institute, cited in Le Monde, France is ranked 15th in terms of its military support for Ukraine. This is way behind the US’s contribution (€43.9 billion – equivalent to nearly £38 billion) which alone totals more than the whole of Europe’s. Germany comes second (after its initial reluctance) and the UK third. According to Kiel, France’s contribution to Kiev is €600 million (£513 million), compared to the UK’s £9.3 billion and Germany’s €17.7 billion (£14.6