Macron’s Brexit obsession leaves him blind to France’s real adversary

Emmanuel Macron’s Europe minister Clément Beaune is fast gaining a reputation for bashing all things British. ‘Stop telling us you do not need us anymore, stop being obsessed with us, stop believing we will solve your problems,’ he raged recently. ‘They made a mess of Brexit. It’s their choice and their failure, not ours.’

Beaune’s boss has much the same mindset: five years after Brexit, Macron is still in a sulk. ‘The Brexit campaign was made up of lies, exaggerations and simplifications,’ he told France in a New Year’s address last year. ‘We must remember at every moment what lies can lead to in our democracies.’ This from the president who, in July, broke a solemn vow to his people that he would not introduce vaccine passports.

It’s no coincidence that both Macron and Beaune are Enarques, graduates of the Ecole National Administration, or ENA, the finishing school for French technocrats. Macron’s predecessor, François Hollande, is a graduate. Prime minister Jean Castex also went there, as did his predecessor Édouard Philippe.