Research

Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform think tank, predicted that a reset in the Franco-British relationship won’t happen until Johnson ceases to be prime minister, and warned that contempt for the U.K. leader at the Elysée should not be underestimated.“The truth is that Macron doesn’t like Boris Johnson at all,” Grant said. “It is not just electoral politics — he really is fed up with Johnson. [The French] think Johnson is not an honest or a serious person they can deal with. That’s going to continue.”

But they’re unlikely to do so voluntarily, said Zach Meyers, senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform think-tank. There is just too much money on the line if a company like Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, is restricted in how it can target advertising at specific groups of users.“The big tech firms will heavily resist other countries adopting similar rules, and I cannot imagine the firms voluntarily applying these rules outside the EU,” Meyers said.

Nonetheless, Ian Bond, a senior British diplomat for almost 30 years who is now director of foreign policy at the Centre for European Reform think-tank, said a Le Pen win could mean the end of France’s historical trans-Atlantic defense role. “The French were quite often quite difficult in NATO discussions,” he said.“But where the French didn’t go was to suggest, ‘Actually the Soviet Union isn’t that dangerous, is it?’ They accepted the case that the Soviet Union was the big problem that we had to face. And if Le Pen doesn’t accept that that is true of Russia, then that is problematic.”

"In negotiating the Digital Services Act, EU law-makers balanced tackling disinformation with protecting free speech. The Commission’s last-minute proposal for stricter regulation of tech platforms during crises undermines this balance," said Zach Meyers, a senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform (CER) think-tank.

The Centre for European Reform, a think-tank, estimates that UK trade in goods is down by around 15 per cent due to Brexit.

“If Le Pen enacted her policies, the consequences for the EU would be political chaos,” warned Ian Bond and John Springford in a report last week for the Centre for European Reform that described her plans for Europe as “a manifesto for trouble”.

Ian Bond, director of foreign policy at the Centre for European Reform, said president Le Pen “would be bad news for France’s relations with its EU and Nato partners, but good news for Putin”.

A report from the Centre for European Reform published Monday highlighted how Le Pen could very well go down the same road as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his Polish counterpart Mateusz Morawiecki in throwing up roadblocks for Brussels wherever she can to further slow the EU’s already cumbersome decision-making."The difference is that France ... is indispensable to the EU,” the report stressed, saying the consequences would be “political chaos.”