France and Britain are changing places

Britain and France are sitting on opposite ends of a political see-saw. Three days after the UK elected a pragmatic, centrist government with a huge majority, France went to the opposite extreme. Sunday’s legislative elections have produced a deadlocked parliament, with both the far right and the far left gaining ground.

In Britain, the period of political chaos that began with the Brexit vote of 2016 may finally have ended. But in France, a prolonged period of political instability is probably just beginning.

Relief that the far-right Rassemblement National performed worse than expected in the second round of voting cannot disguise the fact that the centre ground in French politics is shrinking — and with it the authority of President Emmanuel Macron. The calm of London on election night last week contrasted strongly with the fevered atmosphere in Paris on Sunday evening.

It is unfortunate that the French and British political cycles are so out of sync. Despite their instinctive rivalry, it makes a lot of sense for the two countries to work together. They are neighbours and fellow democracies with similar-sized populations. Each retains some of the symbols of great power status, such as nuclear weapons and permanent membership of the UN Security Council, while no longer having the economic power to back that status up.

Both France and Britain have tried to play a leading role in the international effort to address climate change. Both countries take the threat of Vladimir Putin’s Russia very seriously and are strong supporters of Ukraine. In recent decades, France and Britain have also been Europe’s two leading military powers — although over time German rearmament may change that.

But Britain’s ability to exert real influence over the future of Europe has been hobbled by Brexit, which has placed the UK outside the key political structures of Europe and left a legacy of mistrust and institutional wreckage. In Britain’s absence, Macron seized the opportunity to lay out an ambitious vision for the future of Europe. But the French president’s ability to claim the intellectual leadership of Europe is now likely to disappear, along with his domestic political mandate.

And yet the international challenges faced by Britain, France and Europe as a whole are only likely to intensify in severity over the coming year. The Ukraine war is currently deadlocked and nervousness about a potential Russian breakthrough is mounting. A second Trump presidency would pose clear risks to the Nato alliance and the international trading system. That, in turn, would imperil Europe’s future prosperity and security.

In theory, an obvious response to these common threats would be for France and Britain to work much more closely together — and to push for greater European co-operation to reduce the continent’s vulnerability to a more dangerous world.

In reality, the recent shifts in the politics of both France and Britain will make that kind of co-operation much harder. If French foreign policy begins to reflect the priorities of the political extremes, that would create an obvious clash with the views of the new Starmer government in Britain. Both the extreme left and the extreme right in France are much more sympathetic to Putin’s Russia than either Macron or Starmer.

Starmer’s green-tinged internationalism is more obviously in tune with the current policies of Germany’s ruling coalition, which is led by the Social Democrat Olaf Scholz. And indeed, on his second day in office, David Lammy, Britain’s new foreign secretary, travelled to Berlin where he was received with a warmth that is normally reserved for the foreign minister of France.

Starmer and Lammy are instinctive pro-Europeans who have to deal with the reality that Britain is no longer a member of the EU — something that the Labour government has vowed not to reverse. Their aim instead is to negotiate a new security pact with the EU, but to define “security” very broadly, so that it potentially includes a wide range of topics such as energy, climate and critical minerals. That, in turn, might become the wedge through which to open the door to more co-operation with the EU across the board — without touching the sensitive (and crucial) issues of British membership of the EU single market or customs union.

Labour’s ideas for closer EU-UK co-operation got a warm reception during Lammy’s trips to Germany, Poland and Sweden. But France’s reaction to Labour’s proposal for a new security pact remains vital. During the prolonged Brexit negotiations, the French government was crucial in holding the line against any British attempts to “cherry pick” the most attractive elements of EU membership while avoiding its obligations.

Unfortunately, France is about to turn in on itself and it may be many months before it has a government that is capable of delivering a coherent response on European questions. That will be a problem, not just for Britain but for the whole of the EU.

France’s vote also sends an intriguing message about the US presidential election. Do not trust the opinion polls. All the respected surveys pointed to the far right emerging as the largest bloc in the French parliament. In the event, Marine Le Pen’s RN came third. Maybe Donald Trump’s consistent, if narrow, poll leads are less reliable than they look?

gideon.rachman@ft.com