Entente Cordiale Redux: the impact of Brexit on British and French foreign and security policy

ABSTRACT

Brexit has been a game-changer for Britain, and its key partners. Strategic shifts as well as historic relations have impacted the UK’s relationship with France in a number of unexpected ways. This article explores some of the key historical events that have caused both agreement and strife between the two states, looking at the bilateral treaties established to deepen cooperation on security and defence, specifically the Lancaster House agreements, and considers the series of intriguing accords and conventions that have arisen from the mid-1980s, as well as the logistical challenges of the shared border and juxtaposed border controls of Britain and France. Post-Brexit diplomatic forums in which Britain and France are joined by Germany are then explored, before assessing Britain’s attempts to forge its new role in relation to long-standing commitments to France and an evolving relationship with the EU.

KEYWORDS:

• Entente Cordiale
• post-Brexit foreign policy
• Britain
• France
• Lancaster treaties

Introduction

Partnerships are challenging. They require boundaries and commitment, external structure and internal wellsprings. International partnerships between states are equally complex. Some are superficial, lasting barely the length of a summit. Others—such as the relationship between Britain and France—are not only deeply entrenched, but have come to profoundly affect the composition of each country and the wider European continent. From 1066 to Agincourt, from the Hundred Years’ War to Napoleon, from the Congress of Vienna to the Crimean War, from the 1904 Entente Cordiale to pre-WWI tensions and post-WWII attempts to get beyond the ‘hesitation waltz’ leading to and through European integration, British and French history is as tightly interwoven as the embroidery of the Bayeux Tapestry itself.¹ Paris and London have for centuries been lodestars in the wider diplomatic firmament.

Despite two world wars, the integrationist pull of the European Economic Community, the construction of the wider political European Union, followed by the slow unravelling of British EU Membership that led to Brexit in 2020, the various episodes of friendship and hostility suggest that the two countries still consider each other chief partners in foreign, security and defence relations at European and international levels. Following a scene-setting exercise appraising the impressively eventful bilateral relations between Britain and France in the twentieth century, the article explores three key forums in which the two sides are having to fundamentally recalibrate their relationships following Brexit. First, the range of existing bilateral treaties established to deepen security and defence. Second, the less well-known series of bilateral treaties designed to manage commercial and cargo traffic through the Eurotunnel, including the logistical challenges of what is effectively a shared border. Third, the range of post-Brexit diplomatic security and defence forums emerging between Britain, France and Germany—including the E3 as a form of diplomatic coordination between London, Paris and Bonn. The article then concludes with observations for Britain’s wider post-Brexit role in relation to both France and the EU.

Alliances in perspective

The political history of Anglo-French relations illustrates both grave disruptions and impressive cooperation. As Chris Hill argues, from an analytical point of view it is clear that some inter-state relationships survive for longer and in better shape than others. The existence of a formal alliance both indicates a commitment and helps it endure – the days are past when states issued and broke their words as a matter of course.² Formal alliances between Britain and France have provided the external contours permitting cooperation across various policies; equally, the sense of being informally allied has not prevented very real friction between the two sides. The scope and durability of alliances are key, defining essentially the available surface across areas like climate change, defence, border control and sanctions, and the depth to which such agreements are rendered permanent by being institutionalised with the diplomatic structures of either side. The 20^th and 21^st centuries have seen European multilateral and bilateral alliances developing both striking policy-sectoral coverage as well as ‘institutional complexity and bureaucratic inter-penetration’, bringing about both a consultative reflex in partners and increasing the likelihood of seeking collaborative rather than unilateral approaches.³ From this perspective, Brexit is therefore all the more shocking, representing both a major blow to the system of Western statecraft, and a permanent rupture to the architecture of continued UK–France cooperation within the structures of the EU.

A pressing question for both decision-makers and scholars alike therefore is the extent to which Brexit will shake the foundations of the UK-France bilateral relationships; many disruptions in this regard having already preceded EU membership, while others occurred as both states worked to establish their ideal place within the EU’s emerging internal security and defence structures. To some extent, changes in attitude, commitment and progress are inevitable. Britain has seemingly turned both inward, in constitutionally sanctioning the populist rhetoric that led to the 2016 referendum, and outward, with its ‘Global Britain’ foreign policy that is drawn largely in opposition rather than in relation to the EU. While neither post-referendum tensions nor the specific tensions associated with implementing the 2020 Trade and Cooperation Agreement are conducive to establishing wholly new relations with the EU, some positive developments in the course of 2021 suggest that bilateral and trilateral cooperation in security and defence may be the first steps to reworking individual relations with EU member states, as well as refashioning some form of working relationship with the EU.

Equally, bilateral ties between France and Britain are so longstanding as to retain a durability that may well outlive the EU itself. Such longevity and its cross-sector scope suggest that a radical ‘volte-face is bound to be superficial in many respects’.⁴ From the perspective of global governance, the UK has, and will retain, a host of connections with the EU and its individual member states. Despite the absence of substantive internal security arrangements and dearth of any foreign and security content within the 2020 EU-UK Partnership and Cooperation agreement, the scope for renewed (if somewhat denuded) ties between both sides, possibly shepherded by Anglo-French cooperation itself, remains high. Ironically, the global ambitions written into the emerging anthology of ‘Global Britain’ scripts suggest that by adopting a ‘global broker’ approach, the UK is likely to work more rather than less industriously at leveraging its influence within those organisations where—along with France—it enjoys a strong reputation.⁵ These include for example the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), the Council of Europe, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), as well as the United Nations Security Council and summit-based structures like the G7.

The OECD offers a particularly interesting opportunity by which Britain and France could cooperate—with the approval of the US—on key issues like an ‘OECD-wide tax that would apply to most of the world’s largest multinationals’ as well as building a ‘climate club that would include the OECD countries and others that adopt effective emission-reduction policies’.⁶ Within the family of international organisations, as well as its discrete relations with France, post-Brexit Britain is therefore likely to retain not only its consultative reflex with individual partners in traditional policy areas, as well as its ‘penholder’ abilities in convening and drafting the details to subsequent agreements but, in the medium to long term, rebuild a variety of joint positions on the cardinal issues facing European states in the third decade of the 21^st century.⁷

Admittedly, the London–Paris relationship has at times been of secondary importance to the Paris-Berlin axis. Since reunification in 1990, Germany has become an increasingly important European and global player and has sought to strengthen the rules-based international order through various means, being a key advocate for the Rome Statute that established the International Criminal Court, as well as controversially using trade as a means of better foreign relations with possible adversaries.⁸ The E3 format through which Germany, France and Britain coordinate on foreign, security and occasionally defence policy has been an interesting outlier in that the Paris–Berlin relationship is sacrosanct as the key driver of European Union integration, and has become more so since Brexit. Yet on security and defence policy, Germany’s reluctance until now to take a vocal role has often seen France turn to Britain for coordination in this area.

The range of treaties and agreements between France and Britain is impressive. The rationale as to why they exist is just as important. Historically, the links are indisputable. Peace and war, enmity and amity have rendered the cross-Channel relationship unique, from shared monarchs to proxy wars in imperial theatres in North America, Africa, Asia and the Pacific, from ambivalent trans-Atlanticism to a shared Channel Tunnel. As Robert Tombs argues:

These [past] three centuries of global competition and activity have left an important legacy: that Britain and France are today Europe’s only two international powers, the only two European states that maintain both the means and the desire […] to play an effective political, diplomatic and frequently military role in the wider world. We have seen this in recent years […] in Syria, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and Africa.⁹

These centuries of activity encapsulate a spectrum of diplomatic attitudes that has underwritten Anglo-French relations for the best part of a thousand years. The best known of the pre-WWI bilateral relations is of course the 1904 Entente Cordiale, the first codified example of 20^th-century naval and military cooperation, illustrating that the two had far more to gain in relative terms than they would ever lose from continued rivalry. Within two years of the much-vaunted Entente Cordiale, British foreign secretary Sir Edward Grey refused to support France in the event of a German attack, agreeing only to nonbinding discussions that rendered planning virtually impossible for both sides. The inter-war era, including all attempts at defence cooperation remained ‘fraught with rivalry, suspicion (largely due to the UK’s American interests) and disagreement on both sides’.¹⁰

In an attempt to counter the spreading threat of Nazism prior to the outbreak of WWII, MP Winston Churchill travelled to France in 1938 to deepen the Anglo-French alliance, an initiative that was not only welcomed by France, but which allowed both sides in June 1940 to announce an ‘Anglo-French Union’, defined in the House of Commons as an ‘indissoluble union’ between the two, based on an ‘unyielding resolution in their common defence of justice and freedom, against subjection to a system which reduces mankind to a life of robots and slaves’. Indeed, the Anglo-French Union went so far as to state:

The two Governments declare that France and Great Britain shall no longer be two nations but one Franco-British Union. The constitution of the Union will provide for joint organs of defence, foreign, financial, and economic policies. Every citizen of France will enjoy immediately citizenship of Great Britain, every British subject will become a citizen of France … The Union will concentrate its whole energy against the power of the enemy no matter where the battle may be. And thus we shall conquer.¹¹

Such intermingled ambitions lasted no more than a month, scuppered (literally) by Churchill’s subsequent decision to bomb the French navy at Mers-el-Kébir on 3 July 1940, based on largely unfounded suspicions that French command would fail to prevent the fleet from being commandeered by occupying Germany. The decision not only produced a huge loss of life but also halted the majority of diplomatic relations between the two sides until 1944. The first post-war treaty between Britain and France was signed at Dunkirk in March 1947, based on alliance and mutual assistance. This was swiftly followed by the Brussels Pact, as the first post-war intergovernmental organisation in Europe based on common defence, with scope to cover economic and cultural matters. This non-integrated structure saw the beginning of what would become a 20^th century trend, namely that of British reluctance to cooperate within given organisational structures.

However, the Brussels Pact was in turn superseded in 1949 by the construction of NATO, which included the US and Canada, as Europe’s central military alliance. Due in part to the increasing bipolarity of the Cold War, as well as ongoing divisions over security and defence cooperation between Britain and France, the NATO pact ultimately ‘rendered bilateral co-operation between the UK and France largely unnecessary’ and it was not until 1976, three years after Britain had joined the European Economic Community, that the two sides signed a Memorandum of Understanding on the Placing of Services and Facilities of the Government of the French Republic at the Disposal of British Forces in times of crisis.¹²

Repairing post-war trust within and beyond the emerging European Economic Communities took time, and instituted a pragmatic diplomatic default setting, cooperating in ad hoc fashion while keeping the UK’s nascent European ambitions at bay through successive ‘nons’ by de Gaulle. The 1972 French referendum agreeing to ratify the Treaty to enlarge the European Economic Community leading to Britain’s accession in 1973 began the long road to European integration for the United Kingdom, despite long-standing misgivings over British membership. As French President Georges Pompidou argued, somewhat prophetically:

This accession is very much more than a simple enlargement. It will change not only Europe’s external role, but the internal future of Europe and of Europe’s nations and, as a result, the future of Frenchmen … To unite with a people which, perhaps more than any in the world, is concerned to keep its national identity, is also to choose for Europe a formula that will preserve the personality of its nations.¹³

Despite their largely oppositional attitudes to the extent of European integration, the ‘bilateral default’ that gradually re-emerged between the two sides not only allowed Britain and France to operate progressively as partners within the EU, but also ultimately as progenitors of the EU’s own security and defence policy with 1998 agreements propounded by Tony Blair and Jacques Chirac at St Malo.

Geographically, the proximity of the two has made invasion as material a threat as tourism.¹⁴ Regionally, cooperation on travel, transit and borders renders the two partners, not competitors. Cross-Channel structures include the Channel Tunnel, whose construction began in 1986 thanks to agreements between UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and French President François Mitterrand. In addition, and as explored below, the entirely unique co-location of sovereignty effected by the establishment of juxtaposed border control points necessary to managed cross-Channel passenger and cargo traffic led to a series of accords further cementing the highly interdependent relations between Britain and France in national, cross-border and regional theatres that few other countries can boast.

Globally, their historic and current status as nuclear powers, and high-end security and defence capabilities permit scope for continued commitment between France and Britain. The individual and mutual exercise of geopolitical capability has seen some examples of ambivalence, but generally these have been outweighed by decisions to work together in key theatres, including Sierra Leone (2000) in which British troops made use of French bases in West Africa to provide further logistical support, Libya and Mali (with the UK providing heavy duty airlift capacity).¹⁵ Other examples of working within EU and NATO operations abound.

Geographical proximity is one thing, history quite another; a shared interest in co-developing defence hardware is impressive, but it relies entirely on the perceptions by both sides of what makes their shared history meaningful. Cultural links are helpful, but they need to be built into an edifice of shared geopolitical interests with a series of active, rather than passive tools that allow those shared interests to take material and diplomatic, as well as normative shape. Allied partners in two world wars, trading and investment partners in peace, joint ventures including the Channel Tunnel and the supersonic aircraft Concorde undeniably underwrite common commitments to democracy, capitalism, as well as to global governance in cardinal international institutions.¹⁶ Not only do such efforts help ‘overcome the weight of history’¹⁷ but reduce the likelihood of unilateral inclinations to operate independently of long-standing alliances or against collective expectations.

Arguably, national interests remain a key part of undertaking any bilateral connection. Extravagant commentary on Anglo-French cordiality therefore has its limits, not least because both sides achieve relative wins in foreign policy terms, both domestically and internationally.¹⁸ Late 20^th century British adventurism for example brought home Britain’s realization that European foreign policy cooperation provided a way for it to distance itself from the US without endangering NATO, but also to put a brake on French interest in a ‘third force’ in international politics between the two superpowers.¹⁹ France equally operated on the ability to leverage improved collective hard power capability with the UK as well as augmenting its own European leadership in trilateral formats (bringing the UK and Germany together) and key policies in the Mediterranean, security and defence. Bearing this in mind, one further step is arguably needed to indicate not only the depth, but also the genuine value placed by both France and Britain upon their evidently unassailable shared strategic vision and commitments: codifying these self-same commitments in a centrepiece document that outlines each country’s own national interests in relation to, rather than in opposition to, each other.

In this respect, the most important piece of evidence regarding the interdependence of these two states in relation to shared diplomatic positions and their collaborative and frequently interoperable use of hardware is that each country explicitly references the other in key strategic documents. As Tombs points out, France’s 2017 Revue stratégique de défense et de sécurité nationale states clearly:

What is at stake for France is to engage in bilateral cooperation with post-Brexit Britain […] and, this way, to maintain privileged defence relations with the only European country which can still boast global ambitions, nuclear deterrence and the capacity to lead high-stake operations.²⁰

Most recently, the UK’s 2021 Integrated Review referenced the UK’s relations with France in reassuringly strong terms:

We have a deep and long-standing security and defence partnership with France, underpinned by the Lancaster House treaties and exemplified by our Combined Joint Expeditionary Force (CJEF). We will continue working together to counter terrorism and state threats, and to sustain international security. Managing our economic relationship in a collaborative and constructive way, particularly in handling our shared border in relation to both trade and security, will be important to ensuring the overall relationship remains positive. Our intention is to enhance this partnership and to build on the Lancaster House treaties in the UK-France Summit in 2021.²¹

Taken together, the relationships alluded to in these two statements arguably represent more than mere lip service to cross-Channel commitments. Post-Brexit, they—and the series of treaties that together operate as a canon of bilateral commitment—indicate the bedrock and the upper limits that both states can, respectively, draw upon, and can choose to aim at. As explored below, this body of agreements has the capacity to denote France’s ability to rehabilitate British commitment to itself, and in the longer-term, the EU, and Britain’s ability to continue working with France, and—through France—with the EU. Given those connections, neither side is likely to wholly forego the other, despite future transformations to both EU and British diplomacy, which is precisely what renders the 2010 Lancaster House Treaties so powerful. As argued by Lord Ricketts—one of the driving forces behind the 2010 Lancaster House accords—‘there could be no stronger signal of confidence that the vital national interests of the two countries will remain aligned, whatever the ups and downs in the political relationship’.²²

The Lancaster House Treaties

Following the Chequers Declaration of 1995 between John Major and Jacques Chirac, European defence cooperation launched by France and Britain in 1998 at St Malo, subsequent NATO activities including Operation Allied Force, and France’s own return to NATO integrated military command structures in 2004 and 2009 under President Sarkozy, discussions between the two sides began in 2010 on defence cooperation. The 2009 Franco-British summit then sought to push these initiatives even further by establishing discrete proposals for bilateral co-operation in key next-generation areas, specifically unmanned air vehicle technologies and military communications satellites. In 2010, 106 years after the Entente Cordiale, France and the UK signed two significant treaties preserving and extending a range of pre-existing activities in security, defence and nuclear cooperation. For the UK, the two parallel Lancaster House Treaties represented part of a broader national structure involving the creation of a UK National Security Council, a National Security Strategy and a Strategic Defence and Security Review, indicative of Prime Minister David Cameron’s domestic austerity drive, and the support for enhanced cooperation with France. Defence Secretary Liam Fox explained the UK’s rationale on this shift in his statement to the House of Commons in February 2010: ‘we agreed that France and the United States are likely to be our main strategic partners. For us there are two tests: do they invest in defence, and do they fight? Sadly, too few European allies pass both tests’.²³ French President Sarkozy himself moved the agenda forward by also supporting these UK goals, seeing in them an opportunity to both strengthen France’s renewal within NATO and enable new initiatives on joint military procurement with the UK.

The first of the Lancaster House treaties relates to joint radiographic/hydrodynamics facilities and is valid for 50 years, covers nuclear cooperation, affording both sides scope to combine aspects of their separate nuclear procurement and operations programmes. The Teutates project is the cornerstone of this treaty: a single, co-owned, French-based facility for testing nuclear warheads designed for safety and reliability, forecast for completion by 2022. 2018 saw both France and Britain using identical radiographic equipment, suggesting good progress for the overall goal of rendering Anglo-Franco nuclear deterrent interdependent. The second treaty on bilateral defence and security co-operation is more ambitious but unsurprisingly has further to go in the realm of strengthening mutual cooperation between British and French armed forces, and the joint procurement of forces’ equipment. Commitments here entail the sharing and pooling of materials and equipment, providing mutual access to each other’s defence markets, and undertaking both technological and industrial cooperation. This includes the Valduc Centre for Nuclear Studies, a French nuclear facility to which Britain has access for 50 years, with cooperation within this realm viewed by Lord Peter Ricketts, Chair of the House of Lords EU Security and Justice Sub-Committee when interviewed for this article as ‘sealed and insulated’.²⁴

One of the central success stories of the second treaty is the Combined Joint Expeditionary Force (CJEF), designed to deploy joint brigade-level forces to conduct high-intensity combat operations using air and/or naval assets, the completion date of which was 2020. While work remains, the CJEF has been effective in promoting ‘regular joint exercises and exchanges of personnel’ with units training together from across both the French and British navies and armed forces, with the result that ‘the two countries now have a fighting force which they could jointly deploy if the two governments decided to act together’.²⁵

However, key aspects of the second treaty remain incomplete. Despite the combined use of naval and air forces in key theatres including humanitarian relief, joint naval operations, aerial strikes against the Islamic State in Syria (ISIS) and the UK-led NATO Enhanced Forward Presence involving French participation in Estonia, significant areas of defence equipment cooperation remain undeveloped.²⁶ These include specific pieces of hardware such as the Future Air Combat System (FCAS), cooperation on aircraft carriers, and next-generation nuclear submarines. In the realm of combat aircraft, other options have proved more enticing, with Britain cooperating with Italy and Sweden on the Tempest programme, and France undertaking joint research with Germany. While cooperation in some specific areas, including missiles (including an anti-ship missile) have moved ahead, Lancaster’s initial goals for unprecedented industrial cooperation have yet to come to fruition. Budgetary restrictions—which pithily badged the bilateral relationship the ‘Entente Frugale’ in its early years²⁷—as well as the divergent policies explain some of these setbacks. More problematic are the overall roles and responsibilities of both Britain and France in the face of such challenges, the consequent definition of ‘actorness’ of both NATO and the EU, and of course the impact of Brexit.

The degree to which both NATO and the EU are rolled into the Lancaster House Treaties remains ambiguous. In 2018, a UK–France Taskforce defined the treaties as underpinning both NATO in Europe ‘and the defence of the European continent’ indicative of the level of commitment on both sides for:

an ambitious programme of operational, industrial and nuclear cooperation aimed […] at drawing all the synergies from this strategic convergence recertified by France’s return to the integrated NATO command structure. This partnership, which complements UK-France defence in multilateral structures, such as, but not limited to, NATO and the European Union, is crucial for both countries.²⁸

From this perspective, the second treaty in particular remains both bilaterally ambitious regarding interoperable hardware between the UK and France alone and potentially multilaterally conducive to future leadership in other European forums.

The question therefore is twofold: first, the durability of the Lancaster House Treaties in the face of Brexit’s specific impact on Anglo-French relations. Second, the goodness of fit of the accords in continuing to underwrite ‘Brexit Britain’’s shifting ambitions relative to the EU (and to a lesser extent NATO), and France’s independent goals within the EU. Britain faces the option of redefining a new relationship with the EU, or a wholly separate one. France’s President Emmanuel Macron has already affiliated himself with renewed French leadership of key EU initiatives, including the overarching concept of European strategic autonomy, and the various components which since 2016 have seen impressive developments in the area of integrating European defence funds and structures. What role do the treaties play in ensuring both UK-French cooperation on its own merits, and as a microcosm of broader regional security and defence requirements to be addressed by NATO, or the EU? Part of the reaction by France will likely be based on sheer pragmatism, with an acknowledgement that Germany is currently ‘not interested’ in strong defence cooperation like Britain and France.²⁹ The UK for its part is still in the midst of determining both a host of new global relationships and redefining its preferred engagement with the EU. Where the UK may find itself caught out is in relation to the change security landscape within Europe and the direct threat posed by Russia. Germany appears, albeit slowly, to be undergoing a profound internal change and has accepted that it needs to invest far more in its defence capabilities. Whilst this has not stopped criticism for the pace of change,³⁰ it suggests that Germany is aware of a need to take on a greater role within this field and invest more in hard power. This is likely to strengthen French desires for greater defence coordination within the European Union and push the United Kingdom into ‘flexible and ad hoc alliances’ with France, only when France cannot achieve its ambitions within the EU27.³¹

Brexit’s Impact on the Lancaster House Treaties

The challenges are the same for individual European states as they are for the EU: since 2010 when the accords were signed, the European neighbourhood has witnessed the Arab Spring and its ensuing regional security and migration fallout, aggressive Russian foreign policy towards Europe’s eastern border followed by the invasion of Ukraine, populist shifts within the Visegrad states, Islamist-inspired extremism, cyberspace threats, multilateral weaknesses, the volatility of the Trump–Biden transition in trans-Atlantic relations, and specifically Brexit.

Perspectives vary here. Pragmatists, including Lord Peter Ricketts, who was UK National Security Advisor 2010–2012 (and UK Ambassador to France 2012–2016) and instrumental in the Lancaster House Treaties, concede that while in theory ‘Brexit does not weaken the case for Europe’s two major military powers [to] work together’ given the range of exogenous threats to both, ‘in practice, Brexit has pulled in the opposite direction’.³² French President Macron’s determination to expand EU-based autonomy in various forms combined with London’s seeming disinterest in a structured or even ad hoc dialogue with the EU on security and defence suggests that the initial enthusiasm behind the Lancaster House Treaties has largely vanished. Journalist Paul Johnson further noted in an interview for this article that ‘the reality of Brexit was that France was now seen as the hub of European Union defence cooperation, not Brussels, with European defence cooperation itself dependent on what Britain and France opt to do bilaterally’.³³ The 2018 UK–France Taskforce also cautions that while Brexit ‘does not call into question the framework for bilateral UK–France cooperation, it does affect multilateral cooperation, which is particularly central in security matters […] [and] amplifies tensions inherent in the UK–France relationship’.³⁴

At worst, Brexit may erode the degree of bilateral commitment to France enshrined in Lancaster, prioritising opportunities newly envisaged in its emerging ‘Global Britain’ blueprint, starting by diminishing the prospect of security and defence cooperation with the EU. For France, the challenge may be tougher still. Absent the potential latitude afforded by a new foreign policy roadmap, France must somehow ‘reconcile its ambitions for European defence’ including the Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO), the European Defence Fund and a European Intervention Initiative ‘with its alliance with the UK, especially as France remains keen to involve the UK in this European architecture’.³⁵

From a more positive perspective, the roadmap for both post-Brexit Britain’s regional and global objectives, as well as French and European responses is still emerging, so the potential to retain the initial commitments enshrined in Lancaster remains high for a number of reasons. First, the explicitly bilateral content exclusive to France and Britain is relatively crisis-proof. Contextualised by Lord Peter Ricketts, when interviewed for this article ‘as an onion’, Anglo-French relations were on occasion ‘sometimes bad on the outside, but better on the inside, with defence cooperation, followed by nuclear cooperation at its heart’.³⁶ The issue is more one of political will necessary on both sides to continue the relationship. It operates at several levels, starting by fully implementing the remainder of the Lancaster House Treaties themselves. Gaps in interoperability, hardware and industrial cooperation all represent identifiable sectors to catalyse Franco-British relations after Brexit.

Second, Lancaster itself is increasingly underwritten by an additional set of bilaterals governing the cross-border relations regarding the Channel Tunnel (Le Touquet and Sangatte) as well as the challenges of border management in the face of migrant pressures (2018 Sandhurst Treaty). The former are likely to be preserved unproblematically to facilitate the increased use of cross-Channel passenger and freight traffic, but—as explored below—the latter demands constant budgetary and logistical sustenance by both sides to ensure shared border security at key points including Calais, Dover and Folkestone. Continued cooperation on internal security issues covered by Sandhurst greatly enhances ongoing collaboration on defence and external security within Lancaster. Lastly, British and French cooperation can—and will—continue in international theatres wholly separate from Lancaster which may afford the often-fraught bilateral relationship something of a helpful ‘reset exercise’. A good example by which the UK ticks the ‘Global Britain’ box while ensuring ongoing cooperation with France is Operation MINUSMA (United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali), a UN peacekeeping mission launched in 2013 to which both the UK and France still contribute via low-level security-related operations designed to support the re-establishment of the Malian government. Absent the high-end skillset associated with some peacekeeping operations, MINUSMA is more a ‘mixed ability’ opportunity to pull international troops together to ensure local security, regional stabilisation, civilian protection and protecting human rights.³⁷

Where Lancaster may prove ineffective in the short-term is in its ability to open doors to enhanced NATO and EU activities for the UK and France, either together or individually. The bilateral provisions between the EU’s two most advanced security and defence states rendered Lancaster something of a ‘gateway treaty’ in 2010 for enhanced work within NATO and the EU, though arguably little has come to pass in this respect. Post-Brexit prospects appear to have receded, primarily due to the failure to preserve a ‘privileged partnership’ between Britain and the EU, covering police and judicial cooperation in the final 2020 EU-UK agreement. Apart from a modicum of permissible data exchanges and areas for undefined future cooperation, the UK has now defaulted to third-country status relative to the EU, including the key EU agencies Europol (the European Union’s law enforcement agency), Eurojust (the European Union Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation), FRONTEX (the European Border and Coast Guard Agency) and tools including the European Arrest Warrant.

The UK–France Taskforce—along with other significant institutions—made a number of explicit policy recommendations in 2018 opposed to precisely this outcome, revolving around the explicit requirement that ‘Brexit does not endanger security cooperation between the UK and the EU27 including the need to ‘maintain border cooperation agreements’ at a local level.³⁸ From this perspective, while the core of security and defence bilateralism could be revived with sufficient political will on both sides, macro connections enabling Lancaster to operate as an interlocutor for UK participation in key EU security cooperation mechanisms (e.g. data bases and agency access) looks unlikely in the short-term.

Localised Bilateralism: Canterbury, Sangatte, Le Touquet and Sandhurst

Cooperation on the logistics of cross-border cooperation between Britain and France was first established in 1986 by the Treaty of Canterbury between Thatcher and Mitterrand. Established as a binding agreement between the two governments entrusting France Manche and the Channel Tunnel Group with the design, financing, construction and operation of the Channel Tunnel until 2086, Canterbury is unique in establishing a land frontier between the two countries in the middle of the Channel Tunnel. The resulting intergovernmental commission (IGC) is responsible for monitoring all matters associated with the operation of the Tunnel on behalf of both governments. Following the land frontier laid down by the Treaty of Canterbury, the 1991 Sangatte Protocol³⁹ provided for border checkpoints to be established by France at the Eurotunnel Folkestone Terminal in Cheriton, Kent, and for equivalent border checkpoints to be set up by the UK at the Eurotunnel Calais Terminal in Coquelles, France. The border controls operate through a model of remote sovereignty unique in international law. A decade later, again in the Nord-Pas-De-Calais (now Hauts-de-France) region of Northern France, the 2001 Touquet Treaty provided enhanced authority to UK and French border agents.

While these treaties are a fundamental part of UK–France relations, they ultimately facilitate the far older series of cross-Channel—or chassé-croisé – networks, and their role in fostering relations and forming identities. The sheer range of exchange between both the UK and France, and the UK and the wider EU, is striking, entailing not just cargo and commercial traffic, but ‘goods, services, money, ideas, possibilities, differences, values’ in a way that—as argued by Drake—‘sums up the fluid and dynamic nature of cross-Channel traffic where all that stays the same […] are the two fixed end points’.⁴⁰ The operation of the tunnel itself can be considered intergovernmental between primarily the UK and France, with some input from Belgium—‘Brexit will not have an impact in terms of legality, functioning and safety issues’.⁴¹

Indeed, the intrinsic overlaps fostered by the Sangatte Protocol, and reinforced by the Le Touquet Treaty render the Channel both a shared linear space when relations operate well, and a series of stark dividing lines when relations break down. The Channel represents the multilayer connections between a multiplicity of identities: England, Britain, France, Europe and the EU, on the basis of geography, commerce, culture, politics and law. For both sides, the Channel is the single point of physical contact between Britain and the continent, connected to high-speed links that are at once domestic and international, a ‘complex multi-modal transport network’ vital for both sides.⁴²

Despite the volatile response provoked by the issue of borders at key points in the political history of both countries, the practical management of their own borders has been largely and successfully dealt with through this first generation of bilaterals. With the complications of Brexit, and the added pressure of irregular migration to and through both France and Britain, border issues became steadily more complicated from 2016, transforming from uncomplicated frontiers to highly fraught sites of contestation. At best, ‘frontiers’ are places of passive peripheral responsibility and management, working on the basis of collaboration and cooperation. Tinkering with borders and sovereignty, particularly under the aegis of the EU, is the closest that Britain has come to dealing with the principle of open borders on which so much of the EU is based. At worst however, frontiers are active sites of identity displacement and identity rejection for both citizens and refugees—a forceful engagement with the feared ‘other’. Neither side has managed the growing rise and movement of refugees particularly well. Britain generally attempts to reject migrants wholesale, suggesting France should pull its weight by stopping them outright or containing them in permanent migrant camps. France acts pragmatically, but clearly within and not beyond certain limits.

While the Le Touquet Accords were an initial tool for border guards,⁴³ both states felt they needed tough methods to tackle the pressures of what they viewed as irregular, even illegal migration. Signed by Prime Minister Theresa May and French President Emmanuel Macron, the 2018 Sandhurst Treaty represented an enhanced border security deal, allowing the UK to effectively outsource its cross-Channel migrant issues by simply paying France itself to prevent migrants from reaching British shores. The first batch of funding saw the UK pay £44.5 million (€50 million) for fencing, CCTV and detection technology in Calais and other Channel ports, allowing both sides to claim a victory in ensuring bilateral relations underwritten by improved border security. Tensions increased in the run-up to French presidential elections, although border arrangements were retained, and action largely reserved to ‘verbal words’, with both President Macron and Hauts-de-France President Xavier Bertrand considered ‘pragmatic over the management of ports and borders’.⁴⁴

The comparison between these sets of Anglo-French accords in the wake of Brexit is fascinating. The Lancaster House Treaties are likely to fare best, remaining a predictable mid-range structure that can ensure future UK–France growth in security and defence while helping to keep the door open to potential operational participation by Britain in both the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) and Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) programmes. The Canterbury Treaty and Sangatte Protocol depend on the ability to subsume self-standing commercial accords regarding the management of the Channel Tunnel and the Eurostar within overarching EU regulations regarding rail safety. While the final EU–UK deal of 2020 has produced a short-term solution, the scramble by the European Parliament to adopt temporary rules just prior to the deal to permit Eurotunnel to continue managing freight and vehicle traffic between France and the UK suggests that a far more extensive agreement is required. Legal obligations including jurisdiction, rail safety regulations, and commercial responsibility represent issues of potential post-Brexit discord. Even more problematic is the financial situation of Eurostar itself, which in early 2021 was reported as close to bankrupt due to the 95% drop in passenger levels arising from the COVID-19 pandemic. Demands from a number of quarters that the British and French governments help revive the fortunes of Eurostar are predicated less on the need to underwrite UK–French relations than the need to sustain their respective national economies, and the sustainable form of transport that the Eurostar itself represents. However, it is also a complex commercial entity, owned 55% by the French state, partly by Belgium and the UK, thus creating an imbalance in the ‘risk-benefit’.⁴⁵

Lastly, the Sandhurst treaty is likely to be revisited due to the semi-permanent challenges faced by both countries in tackling asylum seekers, and regular and irregular migrations. At best, Sandhurst will herald a host of new agreements on internal security covering the areas on police, judicial and intelligence sharing that conspicuously failed to materialise in the EU–UK deal of 2020. Serving as a gateway treaty, the next generation of Sandhurst could see France operating as interlocutor, nailing down conventions that strengthen both UK–France border safety and UK–EU internal security more broadly, including counter-terrorism⁴⁶ enhanced data exchange and intelligence sharing, the protection of populations and critical infrastructure at and beyond the border. At worst, it will deepen the relative differences over migration, which have already strained relations between the two sides. Ultimately, as observed by Lord Peter Ricketts, ‘it all requires goodwill, based on a climate of strong relations’.⁴⁷

UK–France Bilateral conclusion

Security and defence, as well as cross-border accords between the UK and France suggest both durability and institutionalisation that will not be unduly troubled by the diplomatic disruptions entailed by Brexit. Both states are capable of using the connective tissue constituted by the range of existing operational, strategic and normative conventions and treaties to take the long view, able to see and pursue their long-term national interests. Indeed, in some sense, France is the best possible example for Britain of a state that prompted an equally radical institutional upheaval by withdrawing from NATO’s military structures in March 1966. General de Gaulle’s decision blindsided NATO partners and the US alike, leaving both ill-feeling within NATO as an institution, and punitive attitudes among France’s erstwhile allies.

France’s ‘Frexit’ from NATO was in some sense a forerunner of the UK’s own Brexit from the EU; both upheavals placed national governments across Europe in challenging positions and created institutional volatility that for a time undermined both the tangible and intangible components of the overarching organisation. NATO’s response was to exercise forbearance on behalf of all its members in accepting France’s decision, allowing it too to play the long game. Equally, efforts began almost immediately with the signing of secret conventions ‘detailing how in an emergency French forces could re-join the NATO command structure’, thus laying the groundwork to facilitate a French return, both incrementally and permanently.⁴⁸ France has also faced domestic challenges similar to Britain’s Brexit crisis. As Drake argued in 2018, ‘previous referendums in France on EU affairs have seen either narrow victories for further integration (as with Maastricht in 1993) or rejections (the Constitutional Treaty in 2005), and French public support for EU membership remains shaky’.⁴⁹

Echoing the uproar caused by the outcome of the 2016 UK referendum on EU membership, France’s 2017 presidential election saw the explicit use of disruption and crisis as a political force propelling both Emmanuel Macron’s party, La République en Marche (LREM) to victory on the basis of overturning the status quo, and Macron’s second-round rival, the ardently Eurosceptic Marine Le Pen, campaign on ‘taking back control’ of French sovereignty from the EU and transplanting it to a Europe of exclusively independent nations.⁵⁰ Both states, therefore, have long been acquainted with the domestic stresses inherent in the obligations of EU membership, both sides resisting key aspects of integration for various reasons connected to undermining national autonomy. France, however, has arguably seized opportunities arising from the expansion of the EU as a political, trade, monetary and security actor. This has been illustrated most recently in Macron’s ambitions to forge ahead on European defence integration in a way that boosts public confidence in the EU and in France’s ability to lead within the EU.

Between September 2021 and April 2022, both Germany and France faced a period of profound internal change. German Chancellor Angela Merkel retired and after initially leading in the polls, her Christian Democratic Union party finished in second place to the Social Democratic Party (SPD) led by former Foreign Minister Olaf Scholz. Yet, early indications are that Scholz’s Chancellorship is modelled on his predecessors⁵¹ – a steady as she goes approach that seeks to react as needed to events and places unity over progression. This stands in contrast to Emmanuel Macron’s re-election as President. After a series of polls in late March and early April 2022 that showed a sudden narrowing between Macron and Marine Le Pen, as well as a surge for the left-wing leader of La France Insoumise Jean-Luc Mélenchon, Macron was able to comfortably defeat Le Pen in the run-off second round by 58.5% to 41.5%, although this was a reduction from five years earlier when he obtained a 66% share of the vote. President Macron now stands as Europe’s senior leader, eager to push forward European integration within a series of areas, especially his key aspiration of ‘European Strategic Autonomy’.⁵² In response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it has been President Macron that has arguably been the most visible EU leader pushing for a diplomatic resolution with Russian President Vladimir Putin, a move that stands contrary to Britain’s hard power resolve with Ukraine.

Triple entente? UK–France–German relations

Much as Britain and France may wish to think that a London-Paris connection is the chief European linkage, Germany has re-emerged as a third pillar in Europe. The fact that Germany has the largest economy in Europe and its innate conservatism have often seen its decision-makers apply the brakes to French manoeuvres on increasing European Union integration and lambast interventionist military policies by the UK. Since 2003, however, the three states have worked together in an informal grouping known as the E3, coming together in the aftermath of the decision to invade Iraq. While Britain stoutly backed the invasion led by the United States, France and Germany did not, producing a deep rift amongst European capitals in the first major foreign policy challenge of the 21^st century. In an attempt to resolve future rifts, the three foreign ministers agreed to cooperate on mutual foreign policy objectives, with energy mainly focusing on preventing Iran from developing its own nuclear weapons.

The continued engagements by the E3 with Tehran, supported on occasion by the EU and Italy, initially caused much frustration in Washington D.C., where the Bush administration had hoped to ostracise the Iranian government globally and bring about its collapse due to it being a part of the so-called ‘axis of evil’. Over time however, partly aided by a change in presidency but also meaningful progress in negotiations with Iran, the United States began to accept the need to be at the negotiating table, with overtures also made to China and Russia. The E3 + 3 would sign the Iranian Nuclear Accord with Tehran in 2015 which saw Iran commit to caps on its nuclear programmes (effectively preventing it from being able to develop nuclear weaponry) in exchange for the USA lifting longstanding sanctions.⁵³ For the E3, this was a significant moment in a process that had, at times, been painfully slow; serving—somewhat unexpectedly—as a workable forum for the primary foreign policy objectives for all three states.⁵⁴

For Britain, the E3 symbolised a decree of repentance to Europe over the war in Iraq and its commitment to seeking diplomatic solutions where possible. For France, the trilateral underlined the influence it could bring on global issues, especially when it applied the full weight of its diplomatic muscle. For Germany, the E3 was arguably its first major step onto the global stage in a foreign policy sense since 1945, showcasing the role it could play yet had often been reluctant to. Unfortunately, the Iranian Nuclear Accord lasted less than two years when President Trump withdrew the United States and reapplied sanctions, with Tehran in turn moving away from commitments from its nuclear programme. The forum has continued to press both sides to recommit to the treaty and hope has re-emerged under President Biden that a resolution may be found. In other areas however, the E3 have been less successful and often showed a disjointed approach. Attempts to intervene in other issues in the Middle East, such as the Syrian civil war, have produced no tangible results.⁵⁵ Indeed, over the last decade, the three powers have been unable to agree on three of the biggest issues in the European neighbourhood—Libya, Russia and the refugee crisis. In Libya, it was France and Britain that applied heavy pressure on the United States to intervene and prevent a potential humanitarian crisis in the city of Benghazi, an excursion that while under the NATO flag, was in fact a primarily British, American and French exercise. Germany not only opted out of the NATO operation but whilst holding a two-year UN Security Council seat at the time, opted to abstain on UNSC Resolution 1973, which provided the legal basis for the NATO intervention in Libya.

Whereas Russia and China had been convinced to abstain (and not vote down the resolution), which under their permanent powers status would have killed the resolution, Germany’s abstention was widely perceived as a rejection of the intervention. This was all the more damaging considering the Anglo-French efforts in crafting the initial resolution and a snub that would become complicated over time as NATO forces arguably overextended beyond their initial mandate under ‘Responsibility to Protect’; instead, removing Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and seeing the country descending into a civil war that persists to this day. It was a move that highlighted the fragility of the E3 partnership, laying bare the mutual reliance on the Anglo-French military relationship and the weaknesses in Germany’s foreign policy ambitions.

Yet, the partnership has become more complicated still in dealing in recent years with Russia. After facing the prospect of Ukraine aligning more closely with Brussels, the Russian invasion of Crimea and the breakout of the Ukrainian civil war saw different approaches outlined between the E3. Britain, in a move partly reflective of a growing animosity towards Moscow, joined the United States in strong sanctions and public calls for Russia to withdraw its troops from Ukraine. Owing to this, France and Germany opted to form the ‘Normandy Format’, a French-German led approach to strike a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia, with Britain playing a role on some occasions when the format has been extended. Whether or not this was a signal that Britain could not ultimately be trusted to deal robustly in response to American pressure in peace talks, or a complex indication of the unease in Paris and Berlin at the prospect of ostracising Moscow given their energy dependence, remains unclear.

Despite its limitations, the E3 format has been one of the most intriguing ad-hoc formats to emerge this century, bringing together the largest diplomatic, security and defence states in Europe in a loose grouping operating within an increasingly multipolar world. The decision by the Johnson Government to abandon previous commitments to securing a foreign policy, development and defence chapter in the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement has possibly strengthened the E3 as a usable forum. Currently, Britain has no formal relationship with the EU on foreign policy matters⁵⁶ and whilst this will inevitably develop over time, informally at the very least, it has staked its fortune on a series of key bilateral relations. Within the E3, France and Germany will be keen in the interim to maintain strong relations, in particular over defence and security, while being careful not to push the E3 too robustly within EU forums. Yet, both Germany and France benefit from the balancing role that the UK has played in the Franco-German relationship. As a Chatham House paper recently described it, Britain gives ‘France an ally in pressuring Germany to think and act more strategically, while offering Germany a way to counterbalance France’s proactive approach and claims to European leadership’.⁵⁷

The primary challenge in the E3 relationship is arguably helping to define, or at least mediate, Britain’s post-Brexit ambitions. Despite recent attempts, ‘Global Britain’ has yet to put a ‘little meat on the bone’ in practice.⁵⁸ Critics have argued this could be anything from a more isolationist approach, through to a desire to simply ignore Europe and possibly strengthen the Commonwealth, if possible, to a cross-hybrid role as an active actor in Europe, the Commonwealth, Five Eyes and the transatlantic relationship.⁵⁹ Indeed, Paul Johnson indicated that the more British foreign and defence policy looks towards the Five Eyes nations, ‘the more that’s potentially difficult for France and may make it less, rather than more, cooperative’.⁶⁰ The Government’s Integrated Review, published in March 2021, gave the first indications of what post-Brexit Britain may seek to pursue in foreign and defence policy. Whilst it spoke fairly strongly on bilateral relations with France, especially in security and defence, it was less endorsing of relations with Germany, although it notably made reference to the E3 within this context, suggesting the government views the E3 as a means of improving relations with Berlin. Notably, the EU received only a fleeting remark—that where ‘interests align’ the two will work together, but Britain will diverge when appropriate.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has also brought a strong reminder to the E3 of the need to cooperate over matters relating to security and defence, especially when it concerns the Euro-Atlantic area. Post-Brexit Britain has arguably strengthened some of its credentials from the invasion, benefiting from intelligence that proved an invasion was imminent, as well as taking a strong stance in the defence of Ukraine and showcasing its continued commitment to the security of the Euro-Atlantic area. Germany has found itself tied in knots: after initially taking strong action in the sanctioning of the Nord Stream II pipeline and supporting the decision to remove some Russian banks from the SWIFT system, it has dithered and delayed on matters such as supplying heavy weaponry to Ukraine and blocking the use of Russian gas.⁶¹ The commitment made by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to meet the military spending of 2% of GDP, including a one-off investment of €100 billion,⁶² will have gone down well with both the United Kingdom and France, although some caution may be needed as it awaits to be confirmed how this will be spent. Indeed, it is perhaps best reflected in the role of the United States, acting as mediator, defender and ultimately, security guarantor for liberal democracy in Europe, which has seen the E3 turn into ‘The Quad’.

Over time, in particular with signs that the United States is increasingly looking towards the Indo-Pacific and the threat of renewed isolationism within certain ranks of American politics, the E3 must find ways to resolve their differences and jointly coordinate on key matters of foreign, security and defence policy. This will likely involve ad-hoc extensions of membership on relevant matters, such as Poland and the European Union when applicable, but cement the London-Paris-Berlin axis that continues to drive much of the political impetus within Europe on these matters. A key area where this relationship may be tested is in the desire from some to increasingly counteract the role of China. This leaves the E3 facing three options:

1. Coordinate and cooperate on matters relating to foreign, security and defence policy, including the USA when appropriate, in a reactionary manner to action taken by China.

2. Play a more active role in the promotion of liberal democracy and free market capitalism, taking advantage of alliances such as the G7 and D10.

3. Actively seek to counteract China in the Indo-Pacific region.

Options two and three as outlined above will likely face stiffer opposition from vocal movements within both France and Germany. The UK, as part of its ‘Indo-Pacific tilt’, has begun to take a more assertive tone in relation to China, but still maintains a heavy economic dependency.⁶³ France has advocated ‘Strategic Autonomy’ for the European Union, a move seen as a way of seeking to create a third way in the increasingly bipolar split between the US and China. Germany, in turn, still maintains elements of its controversial ‘Wandel durch Handel’ policy (‘change through trade’), which seeks to better relations with authoritarian states. However, in light of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, this has largely fallen apart.⁶⁴ It is why the most likely outcome is the default fallback for the E3 – the coordination and cooperation of policy in a manner that has been seen in response to the current Ukraine crisis.

Overall, the E3 is an intriguing alliance that will remain in the future. The key question is whether it is simply a gathering for Britain, France and Germany over a joint approach to Iran or whether it expands to cross-European concerns. The first indication of its post-Brexit version was the agreement to revive the annual Anglo-French summit between defence and foreign ministers, with the 2020 summit cancelled due to Brexit and Covid-19.⁶⁵ Speaking of the announcement, the French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian stated: ‘On many issues, we have congruent views, shared analysis or common interests. We are neighbours. We cannot sit there immobile staring at one another’.⁶⁶ Le Drian’s statement was swiftly followed by the UK–German joint declaration issued in June 2021 as part of Angela Markel’s last visit to the UK as German Chancellor, with both sides agreeing to an annual Foreign Ministers’ bilateral conference to ensure ‘high level of cooperation’.⁶⁷ A commitment was also made to a common approach in both the European neighbourhood, such as the Balkans, but also regions further afield, including Central Asia and Latin America; the agreement also featured a noteworthy section on doubling down commitments towards the ‘multilateral rules-based global order’. The most recent picture therefore is an encouraging one: both Paris and Berlin have taken clear steps to retain and possibly strengthen their bilateral cooperation with Britain post-Brexit, which in turn has been reciprocated.

Conclusion: remaining friends, allies and partners … from borders to the CFSP

UK Brexit negotiations need to take a careful look at what genuinely constitutes the UK’s ability to remain a ‘networked’ foreign policy actor both in and beyond the EU (as intimated in the 2015 National Security Strategy, and the Strategic Defence and Security Review, both of which relegate the role of the EU within the terrain of UK foreign policy). Networks are premised both upon connectivity with, and reach to a range of partners, generally made easier via a larger bloc of coordinated actors drawing upon both financial and diplomatic tools to cultivate a range of third-party agreements.

The benefits of retaining some form of partnership with the EU, whether as a quasi-integrated privileged partner, a mid-range associate, or even a loosely aligned ally, mean balancing UK interests in remaining an important player in Europe with the post-Referendum promises by the British government to become a truly ‘global’ actor. However, this can only likely begin on the basis of reappraising and consolidating its relationship with its nearest, and oldest friend – la belle France.

As illustrated, the Franco-British relationship is perhaps one of the most unique in global affairs. Economic, political, cultural and geographical links have promised both amity and enmity. Membership in the EU has produced both partnership and rivalry. Brexit has dealt a blow to the UK’s ability to work within the EU’s institutions, but possibly not entirely undermined British participation in ex-EU operations on key areas of foreign, security and defence, nor the continuation of long-established cross-sector bilaterals with France. There will still be major upheavals of course. Britain faces a bumpy road in attempting even basic reconnections with the EU, as well as recommitting itself both widely and permanently to current and future accords with France. Both countries however have not only a past history as Europe’s first and oldest democracies, but also a contemporary commitment that ought to underwrite progressive future relations, best outlined in the aforementioned French strategic security and defence review of 2017:

la France et le Royaume-Uni [affirment] qu’il ne pouvait y avoir de situation dans laquelle les intérêts vitaux de l’un seraient menacés sans que les intérêts vitaux de l’autre ne le soient aussi.⁶⁸

The symmetry between France and Britain are illustrated by history, but more effectively written into their strategic national documents, and the anthology of bilateral treaties and conventions explored above. Beyond geographical size, the asymmetries, however, are hard to quantify: Brexit’s ability to grant Britain new foreign policy latitude vs. a post-Brexit EU permitting France enhanced scope for its regional diplomatic and defence ambitions? Only the passage of time will show whether Brexit affords either side an asymmetry that ultimately unsettles or rebalances both their bilateral and multilateral relationships. At this point, a diplomatic terrain comprising concentric circles of connection between the two seems likely: the bilateral accords represent the deepest of connections between France and Britain inhabiting the inner-most circle, their relations in NATO, the EU, and the United Nations Security Council within the next circle, and more wide-spread support on key areas like climate change, vaccine diplomacy, and the United States in the final circle, where either long-standing tensions or new challenges could produce ad hoc cooperation.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Bernard, “Britain into Europe”.

2. Hill, The Future of British Foreign Policy, 129.

3. Ibid.

4. Ibid., 130.

5. Niblett, “Global Britain, global broker”.

6. Grant, “Macron’s Europe”.

7. Security Council Report, “The Penholder System”.

8. Kefferpütz, “Shifting Politics”.

9. Tombs, “The Franco-British Relationship”

10. Alexander and Philpott, ed., Anglo-French Defence Relations between the Wars.

11. CHC Deb 16 June 1940, cc 701–2, cited in House of Commons Library (2010, Standard Note, SN/IA/5750, C. Taylor, Franco-British Defence Cooperation, 8 November, 3).

Available: https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN05750/SN05750.pdf

12. Ibid., 3–4.

13. Pompidou, “Britain into Europe”, 165.

14. Hadfield, “British Foreign Policy”.

15. Harrois, “Franco-British Defence and Security Cooperation after Brexit”.

16. Candel, “Concorde and the future of Supersonic Transport”.

17. Hill, The Future of British Foreign Policy, 132.

18. Putnam, ”Two-Level Games”.

19. Hill, The Future of British Foreign Policy, 134.

20. ”L’enjeu pour la France reste bien, en dépit du Brexit, d’ancrer le Royaume-Uni dans une coopération bilatérale […] et ainsi de maintenir une relation de défense privilégiée avec le seul pays européen toujours doté d’ambitions globales, d’une dissuasion nucléaire et de la capacité de mener des opérations de haute intensité,” Gouvernement de France, “Revue stratégique de défense et de sécurité nationale,” 62.

21. HM Government, “Global Britain in a competitive age,” 60.

22. Ricketts, “France and the UK”.

23. Taylor, “Franco-British Defence Co-operation”.

24. Lord Peter Ricketts, online interview with the authors, March 2021.

25. Ricketts, “France and the UK”.

26. North Atlantic Treaty Organization, “Boosting NATO’s presence in the east and southeast”.

27. Lindley-French, “Entente Frugale“.

28. UK-France TaskForce, “The UK-France defence and security relationship,“ 2–3.

29. Lord Peter Ricketts, online interview with the authors, March 2021.

30. Connolly, “Scholz defends Ukraine policy as criticism mounts in Germany”.

31. UK in a Changing Europe, “Global Britain: Views from Abroad,” 20.

32. Ricketts, “France and the UK”.

33. Paul Johnson, online interview with the authors, April, 2021.

34. UK-France TaskForce, “The UK-France defence and security relationship,” 4.

35. Ibid.

36. Lord Peter Ricketts, online interview with the authors, March 2021.

37. Paul Johnson, online interview with the authors, April, 2021.

38. UK-France TaskForce, “The UK-France defence and security relationship”, 2–3.

39. Named after Sangatte, a town on the Northern coast of France in the Nord-Pas-De-Calais region, and which was at the epicentre of the refugee crisis when it emerged in the Republic in 1991.

40. Drake and Schnapper, “Paradoxical Effect”, 132.

41. Lord Peter Ricketts, online interview with the authors, March 2021.

42. Vickerman in Drake, “France, Britain and Brexit”.

43. Taylor, “Franco-British Defence Co-operation”, 5.

44. Paul Johnson, online interview with the authors, April, 2021.

45. Lord Peter Ricketts, online interview with the authors, March 2021.

46. Including the prevention of terrorism through nuclear, radiological, biological, chemical and explosive devices, including through the Cyclamen programme for screening traffic passing through the Channel Tunnel.

47. Ricketts, March 2021.

48. Tombs, “The Franco-British Relationship”.

49. Drake, “France, Britain and Brexit”, 99.

50. Ibid., 98.

51. Gehrke, “New German Chancellor Scholz vows continuity with Merkel”.

52. Garton Ash, “Macron wants to turn Europe into a global giant”.

53. Brattberg, “The E3, the EU, and the Post-Brexit Diplomatic Landscape,” 2.

54. Grant, “Macron’s Europe,” 1–2.

55. Billon-Galland and Whitman, “Towards a strategic agenda for the E3,” 2.

56. Ibid., 1.

57. Billon-Galland et al, “Europe After Coronavirus,” 7.

58. Hadfield, “Carry On, Global Britain”.

59. Hadfield and Wright, “Fog in Channel?”.

60. Paul Johnson, online interview with the authors, April, 2021.

61. Connolly and Wintour, “Pressure mounts on German ministers to embargo Russian energy”.

62. Deutsch Welle (DW), “Germany’s army: Will €100 billion make it strong?”.

63. Ashton and Seal, “U.K. Finds No Grounds to Block Chinese Takeover of Chipmaker”.

64. Moens, “Ukraine presses the EU to get real about trading with the enemy”.

65. Wintour, “France, Italy and Germany seek post-Brexit deals with UK”.

66. Ibid.

67. HM Government, “UK-Germany joint declaration”.

68. Gouvernement de France, “Revue stratégique de défense et de sécurité nationale,” 62.