France’s growing German scepticism

Britain’s favourite Frenchman, Michel Barnier, is in the Calais region today where he will address a conference about his part in Brexit and perhaps give a further indication as to his presidential aspirations. The EU’s chief Brexit negotiator was described in yesterday’s Le Figaro as the man who can ‘unite the right’ and in doing so present a credible alternative to Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen in 2022.

Barnier presides over a political initiative called Patriotes et européens and he explained its concept to Le Figaro: ‘Patriot and European, this means that I believe in the force of the nations, the respect of national identities and France as a country of influence at the head of the European nations.’

What Barnier and a great many of the political class in France fail to understand is the shift in attitude towards the EU in the last year. There is the manner in which Covid has exposed the incompetency and disunity at the heart of the EU, and undoubtedly Brexit has shown the eurosceptic French that it is possible to escape the tyranny of the EU.