Quel sac de vent. Emmanuel Macron gave a long, sticky speech to parliament in which he waggled his hips at the front row’s Sir Keir Starmer – ‘deer Keer!’ – and ticked us off about ‘deeply regrettable’ Brexit.
The French president told lover-boy Keir to hop back into the EU sleeping bag. ‘Let’s fix eet,’ he purred, creepy as some chat-up artiste at a Juan-les-Pins campsite. ‘Let’s alloo our children to ’ave the same opportunities as we ’ad. We’ll meet again, oui?’
This was a gorge-tester of a performance, the speech of a sashaying solipsist. Hairy-froglet-hands-on-naked-thigh stuff. Properly shuddersome.
The children he was referring to were the offspring of the privileged who go on exchange trips. Kids from red wall seats are seldom so lucky.
The audience of Europhile peers and mainly Labour MPs lapped it up, naturally. Unless their delight at the end was simply relief that the Frenchman had finally stopped pontificating.
‘Emmanuel Macron gave a long, sticky speech to parliament in which he waggled his hips at the front row’s Sir Keir Starmer and ticked us off about “deeply regrettable” Brexit,’ writes Quentin Letts
Standing there in his Cuban heels, M Macron was snootily dismissive of his rival Trump. He pooh-poohed Washington’s attitude to global quangos such as the World Health Organisation and deplored ‘imperial urges’. Was he referring to Russia and China, or to Greenland-fancying Trump? Not for a moment did he clock the irony that he himself was putting the case of a failing EU empire.
Artificial Intelligence and Chinese-run websites were more of a threat to sovereignty than any Eurocratic regulations, he argued. ‘The UK cannot stay on the sidelines. The point is, not to diverge.’
Did you feel on the sidelines? Brexit has been a liberation, a horizon-stretcher. We have peeled out of the peloton, escaping the anonymity of Club Med. But M Macron was giving us the old come-hither.
‘Europe has changed,’ he cooed. They always say that, don’t they? ‘Strengthen our value chains. Let us not alloo the Channel to grow wider.’ And with that he gave a little waggle of his eyebrows which made his whole toupee, or whatever that confection is, crawl backwards an inch on his scalp. Was it even on the right way?
There was time for a final, slinky vive la France before he clicked his fingers and asked the garcon to bring him the bill.
These speeches to MPs and peers, held in the Lords’ royal gallery and overlooked by vast murals of Waterloo and Trafalgar – cop that, mate – come with the rations on state visits. The away team is greeted by the Commons and Lords Speakers. Parliament’s doorkeepers are kitted out in tailcoats and the sword-wielding Sergeant at Arms in his best Lord Fauntleroy ruff. The visitor is expected to speak for some 20 minutes. Something diplomatic and mildly poetic normally does the trick.
M Macron, having pitched up some 20 minutes late, burbled away for more than half an hour. The room was warm when he entered. By the end it was as hot as a Bagneres-de-Bigorre prop forward’s jockstrap.
Talking of which, Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle gave us one of his fascinating dilations on rugby league. I saw Lord Wrigglesworth, a Lib Dem, listen to Sir Lindsay’s broad Lancs accent via the simultaneous-translation headphones we had all been given. Mme Macron, possibly more interested in boxing, wore a look of heroic endurance.
French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte, stand beside the Speaker of the House of Commons Lindsay Hoyle, right
M Macron spoke in English. Wrong choice. It is bold for any Englishman to criticise others for linguistic infelicity but for a speech of this prominence it would have been wiser had the president spoken in French and let the headsets do their job. After ten minutes Macron’s accent was becoming a touch Officer Crabtree from TV’s ’Allo ’Allo. By the end we were in Inspector Clouseau territory.
A senior peer dropped a pile of papers all over the floor. Someone’s mobile rang a xylophone ring. Lord Jay’s water bottle sprang a leak. Was Lord Beith asleep? Lucky devil.
And then Lord McFall, the Lords Speaker, started citing Rabbie Burns. In French. Hemlock, Percy. Make it a pint.
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