08-07-2025
Macron: UK and France are dangerously dependent on US and China
Britain and France are dangerously dependent on the US, President Macron has warned, as he called on the UK not to 'stay on the sidelines' of Europe.
In an address to parliament, the French president said that both countries were too reliant on America for the technologies of the future and attacked President Trump's tariff war. He also said that both countries were depending too much on China.
He signalled that France was prepared to move closer to the UK, pledging the 'best ever co-operation' on immigration and a new joint defence deal.
• Macron state visit live: France and UK to stop small boats 'together', says president
Last night diplomats were trying to finalise the details of a landmark one-in, one-out deal that would allow Britain to return small boat migrants to France for the first time since the crisis began in 2018. Macron said that the UK-France summit on Thursday would deliver 'tangible results' on migration.
Speaking to MPs and peers, the French president provocatively equated the threat posed by the US to that of China, warning that if Britain and France wanted to 'build a sustainable future for all children' they had to 'de-risk our economies and our societies from these dual dependencies'.
'What is at stake today in Europe is our ability to invest in key technologies of the future to avoid strategic dependencies and disengagement that would put us at risk of a slow death,' he said.
'If we still depend on both China and the US, I think we have a clear view of our future and the future of our children.'
He said that this extended to areas like social media where children in Britain and France were vulnerable to 'algorithms' and 'misinformation' created abroad.
Macron urged Britain to become more European in the face of these threats, building on the government's recent reset with the EU.
'Even though it is not part of the European Union, the United Kingdom cannot stay on the sidelines because defence and security, competitiveness, democracy — the very core of our identity — are connected across Europe as a continent,' he said.
The French president said the two countries 'may end up strangers' if they did not 'move forward side-by-side' on key strategic decisions.
• Keir Starmer to push Macron for last-minute migrant return deal
On migration, Macron signalled that he was ready to sign the one-in, one-out migrants deal.
He referenced how Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, and Bruno Retailleau, the French interior minister, had worked 'very closely together' on reaching a deal on migration.
Sir Keir Starmer has been pressing Macron to agree to a returns agreement which would allow Britain to return migrants arriving on small boats back to France.
In exchange, Britain would accept migrants with a legitimate case for joining family already in the Macron also sought to put the small boats crisis in perspective by pointing out that only a third of illegal migrants entering the EU end up crossing the Channel to Britain.
• We may be old allies with France, but new threats abound
He said that a 'lasting and effective solution' to the migrant crisis would only be reached if there is a Europe-wide solution and said more must be done to stop migrants leaving their country to start with by working closer with departure countries.
Macron warned that the two countries' youngsters were 'growing apart' as he implored the UK to sign up to an EU youth mobility scheme.
He urged the UK government to 'work together in order to facilitate the exchange of students, researchers, intellectuals, artists' as he said it was 'so important' that children have the 'same opportunities as the one we had'.
Macron called on Starmer to immediately recognise a Palestinian state, something the Labour government has said that it will do when it thinks it is the right time.
He also urged both countries to stand up to Trump's tariffs, saying that they undermined free trade.
