On June 6 at Bayeux, France, the United States Secretary of Defense, Lloyd J. Austin III, met with his French and British counterparts. The meeting took place on the periphery of the commemorations in Normandy to mark the 79th anniversary of D-Day.
The leaders drew parallels between the bonds of our Alliance now and those of 79 years ago, when we fought alongside one another to free Europe and build a world where democracy would flourish. This year marks the anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe.
During the leaders’ first face-to-face meeting as part of this trilateral format, they reaffirmed their unwavering dedication to supporting Ukraine in its valiant defence against Russia’s unjust war. They were also unanimous in their intention to continue providing security assistance to the Ukrainian Armed Forces for as long as it takes.
Relations between France as well as the United Kingdom have been marked by a long and complicated history of conflict intermingled with cooperation. For example, during the so-called Hundred Years’ War, France and the United Kingdom were adversaries, but they were allies during the First and Second World Wars. Despite having ideals in common, the long-standing animosity between the two parties and the burden of the past casts a shadow over the current relationship. This shadow appears in a variety of forms.
Today, Anglo-French relations are characterized by open animosity, despite being governed by the Entente Cordiale, a series of accords formed in 1904 to strengthen relations and end 1,000 years of conflict between the two countries.
Since the United Kingdom had a referendum in 2016 to withdraw from the European Union (EU), the complex divorce has resulted in a succession of very heated disputes between the United Kingdom and France about fishing rights, migration across the Channel, the border between Northern Ireland and France, and nuclear submarines.
The problem of illegal immigration across the Channel has been a source of contention for past long time. The 2003 Le Touquet Accord has typically been the governing document for border patrol between the United Kingdom and France. On the other hand, in November 2021, 27 persons lost their lives while attempting to reach the United Kingdom aboard small boats that originated in France.
Britain and France both blamed the other country for the catastrophe. Because the Dublin Regulation, which allowed Britain to return migrants to other European countries before Brexit, was suspended, a record number of 40,000 people risked their lives to cross English Channel into Britain in 2022. This caused the government of the United Kingdom to incur accommodation costs of 6.8 million euros per day, which was a significant increase from the number of people who reportedly crossed in 2018, which was only 300.
Another contentious issue concerned the issuance of fishing licenses on Jersey, a British Crown dependency channel island that receives its electricity supply from France. Even in 2018, there were skirmishes over fishing rights that broke out when similar instances of sea confrontations between French and British fisherman took occurred.
These sea clashes are famously known as the “Great Scallop War.” But tensions reached new heights immediately after the G7 summit in May 2021, when France and Britain sent gunboats in a dispute over shellfish, and France threatened to cut off Jersey’s power supply in retaliation for Britain’s dishonouring of the Brexit accord by refusing to grant permits to French fishers. Both of these events led to a significant escalation in the level of tension between the two countries.
Despite the fact that fishing only accounts for a small percentage of both of their economies, to be more specific, 0.06 per cent of France’s economy and 0.1 per cent of Britain’s, the industry has a significant amount of symbolic importance for both countries.
To make matters even worse, in September of the previous year, AUKUS—the Indo-Pacific security partnership between Australia, as well as United Kingdom, and United States (US) involving the nuclear submarine deal—slyly terminated France’s lucrative submarine deal signed with Australia in 2016, which cost the country 56 billion euros. This was done on name of the Indo-Pacific security partnership involving the nuclear submarine deal. Instead of calming the humiliated French, former British Prime Minister Johnson made light of the issue by mocking the language, saying in his Anglo-tinted French, “donnez-moi un break,” which literally translates to “give me a break.”
In spite of this, one of most debatable aspects of the situation is the standing of the Northern Ireland Protocol, which the United Kingdom agreed to in the course of the Brexit negotiations in order to keep border open between Northern Ireland along with Republic of Ireland while also safeguarding the single market of the European Union. The Johnson and Truss governments that came before this one attempted to change certain aspects of the convention, which may have led to a trade conflict with the Brussels administration.
Naturally, given France’s enormous power and stakes in the EU, these tensions have bubbled over into the relationship between France as well as United Kingdom. According to the Financial Times, Macron is the most hard-line hawk of any of the EU leaders about this matter.
Since the EU expelled Britain from the North Seas Energy Cooperation Group on renewable energy in 2020, a new cause of contention has been added to the already lengthy list of potential points of contention: the problem of energy security.
Sadly, neither France nor Britain places a high importance on strengthening ties as one of their top priorities. Both countries are experiencing severe economic hardships as a direct result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has also contributed to rising inflation and the cost of oil. Other more serious issues, such as the situation in Ukraine, energy security, China, and the Indo-Pacific, have taken precedence over Brexit, and it has been pushed to a such a lower position on the European agenda as a result.
