Macron talks grandly about Europe – and then cuts a deal with Germany

Emmanuel Macron is, for all his carefully polished image as a radical moderniser (and with the possible exception of not having multiple mistresses), a very traditional French president. He protects domestic industries, especially if they happen to manufacture cars or guns. He subsidises farmers, sends soldiers to small African states, and accumulates more and more debt. Oh, and also in keeping with tradition, he gives interviews to either the Financial Times or the Economist full of high-flown rhetoric about European solidarity before quietly doing a deal with Germany.

This week it was the turn of the FT. In an interview with the paper’s new editor, he argued that Europe now ‘faced a moment of truth’. To fight the coronavirus, it needed ‘common debt with common guarantees’ otherwise ‘the populists will win – today, tomorrow, the day after, in Italy, in Spain, and perhaps in France and elsewhere.’ And so on and so on.