A sovereign Europe

While Mr Macron insisted that defence cooperation had not been cast into question by Brexit, Britain’s role in secretly negotiating the sale of US-designed submarines to Australia in September – at the expense of French ones – had clearly damaged that relationship.

“How can I ignore that the British were, it seems, the ardent promotors of a contract that deliberately fought against a French vision in the Indo-Pacific?,” he asked.

“All this is not the most obvious sign of friendship, to use understatement.”

Touching on the ongoing row over the granting of British fishing licences to French fishermen, he said he hoped this would be resolved before a French deadline on Friday, despite the UK denying that they are working to any such time framework.

“There has been progress in recent weeks. I wish to salute that, there is a sincere re-engagement and I hope new paths open up with all my heart.”

On his European priorities, Mr Macron said that reinforcing the EU’s sovereignty, and notably its borders, would be France’s main priority during its presidency of the bloc, which starts on January 1.

France takes on the rotating six-month presidency as Belarus stands accused of engineering a refugee crisis by flying migrants in the Middle East and pushing them to attempt to illegally cross its borders into EU states Poland and Lithuania.

The bloc has been deeply divided for years in its response to immigration and how to police its common external borders.

“I would say that we must move from a Europe of cooperation within our borders to a Europe that is powerful in the world, fully sovereign, free in its choices and master of its destiny,” Macron told a news conference at which he presented France’s priority for its EU presidency.

France would push for reform of the Schengen area of passport-free travel between 26 countries in Europe.

“Schengen is an area that has become fragmented,” Macron said. “Because of the terrorist threat, because of migration tensions and because of the health panic. Does it have to be this way? I don’t think so.”

Among France’s proposals will be setting up an emergency reaction capability to help EU states facing crises at their borders, Macron said.

He also wants the bloc to have regular political meetings on migration – like euro zone states already do on economic matters.

Macron faces a presidential election in April, and conservative and far-right parties are likely to make migration, on which he is viewed by some as a soft touch, a campaign issue.

The French president also called for strong European defence, saying he would work on creating a “European strategic sovereignty” against “common threats”, including “joint exercises”.

“This idea, which appeared unthinkable four years ago, has allowed us to plant the seed that we Europeans, whether members of Nato or not…have common threats and common objectives,” he said.

Since his election in 2017, Mr Macron has been pushing for EU independence in terms of security, and to no longer rely solely on US military protection inherited from the Second World War. He has said there should be an EU army one day. 

Mr Macron, who is due to meet Germany’s new Social Democrat Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Friday, also said the EU should reconsider its strict budget deficit rules as governments spend heavily to save their economies from the impact of Covid restrictions.

France will push for a “rethink” of rules that include a demand for deficits to remain below three percent of gross domestic product (GDP), he said.

The French president also called for creating sanctions against “political forces” within the EU that cast into question humanist values “which make our Europe”. 

He said he wanted to create an academic framework where historians could independently draw up an official “history of Europe” to counter what he called “historic revisionism” at work in some countries.

Mr Macron would not be drawn on domestic politics and whether he would run for re-election next April, saying that the mere question perhaps betrayed a “hidden desire” for him to do so. 

Asked whether he condemned controversial comments on French Muslims and Jews by far-Right candidate Eric Zemmour, he said it was not for him to disqualify any candidate but those who claimed to respect French “grandeur” must also respect “the dignity of every French woman and man”.