Emmanuel Macron prides himself on having a more presidential manner than his last two predecessors, François Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy, both of whom were seen as too undignified to be

French heads of state. The worst insult in Macron’s lexicon has hitherto been “inelegant” — an epithet widely applied to one of his opponents, Éric Zemmour, who was filmed making a

one-fingered gesture to a female protestor, accompanied by foul-mouthed abuse. French politics seems to oscillate between _la gloire _and the gutter. The President may be right about his

rivals, but his pretentions to be above their level of vulgarity have now been exposed. Yesterday the satirical Paris newspaper _Le Canard enchaîné _reported that on a trip to Croatia,

ensure that the Anglophone press quotes him correctly. Another insult he uses about Boris Johnson has been variously translated as “knucklehead”, “vulgarian” and “good-for-nothing”. Downing

Street’s decision to tweet a letter to Macron about the migration crisis clearly still rankles. “Bojo talks to me, he’s down to earth, everything’s fine, we’re having grown-up discussions

and then he sticks it to us either beforehand or afterwards in an inelegant manner. It’s always the same circus.”   It is no surprise that Macron blames the worsening relationship on Brexit,

but he makes it personal by the repeated allegation of insincerity: “Brexit is the starting point of the Johnson circus. Very quickly he realised that the situation was catastrophic for the

British. There was no petrol in the pumps, there were shortages of a whole pile of products. He is positioning himself as the victim and making France the scapegoat,” he said. “He’s done it

over the ‘sausage war’, over fishing, over the submarine affair. In private he says he’s sorry to behave like this, but he says that he has to consider public opinion over everything else.”

  The most striking thing about this tirade is that the French President evidently does not have the courage to make these allegations to the British Prime Minister’s face. His _modus

operandi _is to do his utmost to undermine his counterpart’s credibility, but to do so in a manner that is deniable. The “serious” media in France, obsequious as ever, have thus downplayed

the story, thereby enabling the Élysée to remain aloof. There is nothing “elegant” about such tactics: they are cowardly as well as despicable. It is notable, too, that Downing Street —

instantly interrogated about the comments by the less compliant British press — has so far declined to reciprocate. The second point that Macron’s attempted character assassination is wide

of the mark. On all the outstanding issues, from sausages and submarines to fishing and migration, the British have been at least as frank as the French. The reason why the plan to tackle

the illegal trade in migrants was tweeted last week is that Macron had ignored its proposals, even after a refugee boat sank with heavy loss of life. There is no British plot to make the

French scapegoats. On every issue, it has been the French who escalated the war of words, dug in their heels and refused to compromise. The Northern Irish Protocol, for example, is said by

Macron to be a question of “war and peace” — but it is he who has exacerbated tensions by adopting the nationalist cause, ignoring the unionist side and blocking British pleas to cut red

tape and normalise trade with the mainland. The British granted over 95 per cent of the licenses to fish in their waters, refusing only a few French trawlers on reasonable grounds. The

French retaliated by threatening to cut off electricity to the Channel Islands. On the AUKUS treaty, which caused Australia to cancel an order for French submarines, Macron lost his temper,

recalling French ambassadors from Washington and Canberra. The French left the London envoy _in situ,_ briefing that the British were mere “stowaways” in the new treaty. It was intolerable

to admit that being outside the EU might have opened up new opportunities for the British.   It will not have escaped notice on either side that Macron’s diplomatic offensive against

Johnson, including his indiscretions in Croatia, coincides with an election campaign in which bashing Brexit Britain has no downside. Nor is it any surprise that the entire offensive is

based on the oldest cliché in Franco-British relations: “perfidious Albion”. Macon can count on voters believing his malicious and mendacious narrative because this meme is part of the

mental furniture of his compatriots. The former French Ambassador in London, Sylvie Bermann (who has a book about her time here to sell) claims that the Anglo-French relationship has “never

been as bad since Waterloo”. That is historically untrue — perhaps she has forgotten Vichy — but the blame for the present friction lies squarely at the door of the Élysée. If Emmanuel

Macron is the _homme sérieux _that he claims to be, he needs to apologise to Boris Johnson for a tirade that can only be described as inelegant. As Talleyrand might have said: it is worse

than an insult, it is a mistake. A MESSAGE FROM THEARTICLE _We are the only publication that’s committed to covering every angle. We have an important contribution to make, one that’s needed

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