Chris

Macron has well and truly drunk the EU Kool-Aid. Of course he thinks a prosperous, free European state outside of the EU is impossible.

Except of course for that tiny bit of himself he keeps locked away, which lies awake at night worrying about a prosperous, free European state outside the EU and right on his northern border. The part that won’t stop whispering, “what if?”

Naturally he still hopes passionately, some might say desperately, for Brexit, if it happens at all, to be as soft as it can possibly be. France’s ideal outcome would be for the U.K. to become a rule taker, without the ability to upset the apple cart as we have had a tendency to do ever since we joined (which is why De Gaulle, wisely, was against us joining in the first place).

It has long been French policy that the European Union is a means for France to use German economic power to mould Europe to suit itself. France believes in ever-closer union because it believes it can mould that union to its advantage. A free, prosperous, relatively deregulated economy on its border would give the lie to the claim that deeper European integration is the only path to prosperity and would make the aim of integration much harder to pursue, especially amongst the reluctant eastern states that until now have been able to hide behind British coat tails in tough negotiations. They will now have to step up and speak up for themselves, and a prosperous, free U.K. may just be an incentive to them.