Why president Macron's open letter to EU citizens is a new daring front in the war against Brexit

Like Churchill in 1948, Macron is determined to posit the idea of union in Europe against what he defines as the threat of Brexit nationalism

It is quite the most extraordinary interference seen in European politics since repeatedly between 1945 and 1951, Winston Churchill told continental Europeans to unite and prevent forever more world wars through what he called a “European Union”.

Clement Attlee’s post-war Labour government rejected Churchill’s appeal and treated with scorn the idea of cooperating economically by placing steel and coal industries under joint European control with guarantees that coal and steelworkers would have a central role in how their industries would be run.

Now France’s president, Emmanuel Macron has made an unprecedented move by sending an open letter to most EU citizens via newspapers in all EU member states calling for the establishment of a “European renaissance”.

Not even Charles de Gaulle had what the French call the culot – the barefaced cheek – to tell every other European nation what needs to happen. To be sure, the Macron-bashers will describe his intervention as arrogant.

They’ll say he should get on with cultivating his garden, as Voltaire put it. And he should do so by sorting out France’s weak economic growth and calming down the gilets jaunes – the yellow vests – the longest rolling protest movement in France since the upheavals that began with the May events of 1968, when student protests merged into a general strike in paris, closing with de Gaulle’s ouster a year later.

In fact, the yellow vests have transformed Macron’s approach. Gone is his self-proclaimed Jupiter style. More hands on now, Macron has spent up to 14 hours a day in town hall meetings up and down France meeting protestors and listening to grievances as well as pointing out that the state cannot cut fuel duty and pass a healthy planet on to the next generation.

He has also made clear that the state cannot cut taxes and simultaneously increase transfer payments or let people retire on a full pension while being fit and young enough to work.

Above all though, Macron keeps insisting in major lengthy properly thought-out speeches in the Sorbonne and in Athens, that France can only succeed if Europe succeeds.

Like Churchill in the Commons in 1948 who spoke of “countries acquiring an enlarged or enriched sovereignty through membership of a European Union” Macron is determined to posit the idea of union in Europe against what he defines as the threat of Brexit nationalism.

In a direct assault on British politicians who have been lying about Europe to bring about the rejection of European partnership voted in the 2016 plebiscite, Macron told the rest of Europe: “Who told the British people the truth about their post-Brexit future? Who spoke to them about losing access to the EU market? Who mentioned the risks of to peace in Ireland?”

He did not mention Theresa May or Jeremy Corbyn by name, although clearly, both have been conspicuous in failing to share these truths with their fellow-citizens. So, like other European leaders, Macron has written off the current generation of British political leaders who have refused since June 2016 to speak openly and honestly about what amputating Britain from Europe entails.

Instead, he has called attention to the sorry picture of Brexit Britain with no economic future, a governing party in chaos and the opposition party wracked by antisemitism accusations – also a major problem in France – to highlight the need to bring new populist nationalism under control.

“Retreating into nationalism offers nothing; it is a rejection without an alternative. The anger mongers, backed by fake news, promise anything and everything,” the French president insists.

Far removed from the Brussels bureaucracy, Macron has called for a European agency for the protection of democracies to safeguard elections against cyber attacks and manipulation. In a dig at Russian and US money-power interfering in the Brexit vote and backing nationalist politics in France and Italy, Macron called on Europe to “ban the funding of European political parties by foreign powers”.

As hate politics increases across Europe and especially in Brexit Britain, Macron has urged for “European rules banishing incitement to hatred and violence from the internet”.

Matteo Salvini, Marine Le Pen, Viktor Orban and other apostles of a white Christian Europe of closed border nationalism, were not mentioned explicitly, but Macron admitted that 21^st century Europe “failed to respond to its people’s needs for protection from the major shocks of the modern world”.

In a swerve to the left reminiscent of Jacques Delors’ appeal for Social Europe in 1988 that so outraged Margaret Thatcher, Macron said Europe “needs to introduce a social shield for all workers, guaranteeing the same pay for the same work and a EU minimum age, appropriate to each country, negotiated collectively every year”.

Even the pro-Brexit Len McCluskey of the Unite union might sign up for that.

Macron’s thesis will now be tested in the European Parliament elections in May. It is fashionable to say the hard nationalist right is poised to take control of European Parliament – a thesis much promoted by professor Matthew Goodwin.

In this cross continent intervention, Macron is taking the battle to the enthusiasts for a nationalist Europe. Whether it will prove more successful than Churchill’s endless calls for a united Europe, remains to be seen.

Denis MacShane is the UK’s former Europe minister and author of “Brexit No Exit. Why (in the end) Britain Won’t Leave Europe”