Emmanuel Macron launched his Big Debate on Tuesday and for the next two months the French people will have the chance to air their grievances in meetings and online. The consultation, in response to the Yellow Vest protest movement, has captured the media’s attention but nonetheless it was knocked off the top of the news agenda temporarily by events in Westminster.
There is an undoubtedly a touch of schadenfreude in the Élysée Palace at the Brexit farrago, a relief that another world leader is in torment.
Macron learned that parliament had rejected Theresa May’s Brexit deal on Tuesday evening, as he was nearing the end of a seven hour debate in a Normandy town hall. Describing the possibility of a no-deal as “scary”, the president added:
“The first losers in this would be the British.”
Claiming that he knew the British “a bit” (his great grandfather was
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