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France falls into chaos as King’s visit cancelled

Trip had been part of Government strategy to renew historic ties with Europe following Brexit

By Victoria Ward, Henry Samuel and Camilla Tominey

THE King’s first state visit has been cancelled, overshadowing attempts to use the trip to reset Uk-european relations post-brexit.

The three-day visit to France, which had been due to begin on Monday, was postponed at the eleventh hour by Emmanuel Macron, the French president, owing to increasingly violent protests over his decision to force through pension reforms.

The tour of Paris and Bordeaux was designed as part of the Government’s “wider strategy” to foster ties with Europe and was due to coincide with the formal adoption of the Windsor Framework, the new Brexit deal for Northern Ireland, which was formally signed yesterday.

Amid the mounting chaos in France, Mr Macron was mocked yesterday after footage emerged of him subtly removing a luxury watch from his wrist during a key television interview on the reforms.

The prospect of the beleaguered Mr Macron dining alongside the King at a black-tie banquet at the Palace of Versailles during the escalating revolt had become increasingly untenable, with commentators suggesting it would have been his “Marie Antoinette moment”.

Elysée sources are understood to have had concerns over the palace’s links to the revolt against Louis XVI, who was beheaded in 1793.

In one incident in Paris, graffiti was daubed on a wall reading: “Charles III do you know the guillotine?”

French intelligence reports warned that the royal tour would be targeted by protesters, suggesting that the King’s safety could not be guaranteed.

A leaked intelligence note warned that militants saw Mr Macron’s televised address last Wednesday, in which he stood by his pension reform, as an “act of war”. The decision to postpone the tour, which was made by both the French and British governments, was relayed to the King by Mr Macron in a “very cordial and constructive” telephone conversation yesterday morning.

The King had been widely expected to make the Commonwealth his priority after acceding to the throne, so the decision to make a first overseas visit to France, instead, was considered particularly significant.

The King is known to believe Britain should keep Europe close. He courted controversy last month when he met Ursula von der Leyen, president of the EU Commission, at Windsor Castle, on the day that Rishi Sunak’s deal with Brussels was agreed.

Mr Macron is also considered key to the success of Mr Sunak’s plan to tackle immigration. The Government is expected to make another key move in its mission to end the flow of small boats across the Channel next week, announcing that migrants will be removed from hotels into military bases, with plans to also use ferries.

The King will continue with his planned two-day visit to Germany, which is due to start on Wednesday, although the schedule remains under review. The France visit is likely to be rescheduled for the start of summer.

THE cancellation of the King’s visit to France is the first time a state visit has been called off because of civil unrest.

The decision underlines the turmoil in the country as protesters angered by Emmanuel Macron’s pension reforms set off fires across the country.

In one incident, graffiti was daubed on a wall reading: “Charles III do you know the guillotine?”

Previously, state visits by the monarch were only called off because of serious ill health or events such as the 9/11 attacks, or the war in Iraq.

Over the weekend, protesters in France were expected to continue demonstrations that have brought the country to a standstill.

The uproar over Mr Macron’s imposition of the reforms – which the government chose to push through without a parliamentary vote – has turned into the biggest domestic crisis of the president’s second term in office.

French unions have announced fresh strikes and protests for Tuesday, which would have been the second full day of the King’s state visit.

Its abrupt postponement will be considered hugely embarrassing for Mr Macron, who extended an official invitation to the King when in London for the late Queen’s funeral last September.

A presidential aide was quoted as saying in January: “It will be extremely symbolic because it will be the first official visit of Charles III. The fact that it will come before the King’s coronation shows how important France is to him.”

The late Queen famously placed great importance on her state visits and therefore they were seldom cancelled.

In 2001, the monarch had to cancel a state visit to Australia and New Zealand in the wake of the 9/11 attacks as world leaders focused on security concerns. In 2003, the monarch called off a state visit to Belgium because of the looming war in Iraq. That time, the decision was based on advice from Downing Street.

Separately, she also cancelled a 2013 visit to Rome after she was hospitalised with gastroenteritis and a 2009 state visit to Dubai and Abu Dahbi because of “other commitments”.

This time, however, King Charles’s state visit was postponed at the request of Mr Macron after the protests became increasingly violent.

Leaked intelligence memos revealed that the French government was warned of the “high risks” of trouble in Versailles, where demonstrators were bent on “spoiling the princely moment”.

The memos said the “social risk” of unrest had rocketed to a “very high level” following Mr Macron’s television interview on Tuesday in which he stuck to his reformist guns.

Three quarters of French workers remain unconvinced by his explanations, a poll found yesterday.

Protesters had also expressed their intention to mobilise in Bordeaux where the King and Queen Consort were expected to visit next Tuesday.

However, they added that the goal was to exploit the international attention surrounding the visit rather than targeting the King in person.

Thursday’s protests saw 450 people arrested and city centres ransacked from Paris to Bordeaux.

Meanwhile, unions urged the president to postpone the pensions reform for six months.

Here is a tale of two cities. In one, the Government, with little regard for constitutional niceties, pushed through a measure based on principles it had been elected to oppose – the Windsor Framework. In the other, the government used legal constitutional provisions to pass a pensions reform for which it could argue it had a public mandate. In the first city, the response was weary acceptance or even relief. In the second, the response was of outrage expressed though violent protests.

Admittedly, in London, it was a mere matter of national sovereignty, whereas in Paris it affected the money in people’s pockets. Yet a similar increase in the pension age was adopted in Britain in 2011 and again in 2014 with little opposition, and France has one of the earliest retirement ages in Europe and one of the biggest national debts. So why do so many moderate people in France sympathise with extreme protests against a reasonable reform? And why do they take to the streets with few inhibitions against violence?

Part of it this time is Macron’s personality and his anomalous political position. A veteran French journalist once said to me that Macron had always been “the cleverest chap in the room”, and he does not hide it. He can be tactless and arrogant. Moreover, he was elected somewhat grudgingly because he was not Marine Le Pen. Macron has never enjoyed the affections of most French people, more and more of whom have decided they dislike him.

He presides over a constitutional system that a distinguished French writer once described as “so dangerous that it would be criminal to put it in the hands even of a saint”. This is the Fifth Republic, created for General de Gaulle in the 1950s as what the chief draughtsman of its constitution described as a “Republican monarchy”.

Here, we need a little history. As we all know, on 14 July 1789 a crowd of Parisians started a revolution. Most revolutions fail, and generally create a situation worse than the one they set out to remedy, as those who have seized power fall out, prove inept, and often end up killing each other. We have seen the same with our Brexit revolution, metaphorically anyway: David Cameron was our Louis XVI, and Boris our Danton.

The French revolution engendered mass violence, several coups d’état, three restorations, 14 constitutions, two empires, one “State”, and five republics. It left the country split into factions (there are three distinct Right-wing traditions, and arguably three Left-wing traditions too). So no regime enjoyed real legitimacy. Every crisis seemed to threaten a constitutional collapse, even another revolution.

Then de Gaulle created the Fifth Republic, arguably the first since 1789 to enjoy general acceptance. So why the present upheavals, and the many others that have preceded them? Because for de Gaulle, France’s problem was weak government. So he went to the other extreme and created the republican monarchy. The procedure Macron used (the now notorious Clause 49, section 3) allows the government to call a motion of confidence on a piece of legislation. If the parties in parliament fail to overthrow the government, the legislation is adopted. Thus the elected president confronts and defeats the elected parliament: he does not have to persuade or compromise. So opposition takes to the streets.

De Gaulle thought of the French as a flock of sheep, but even sheep can turn nasty, as he found in May 1968. The weakness of the Fifth Republic is its failure to persuade, to carry people with it. So parliament is not an effective transmitter of public sentiment, and governments have regularly been taken by surprise by hostile outbursts. They have usually had to back down.

But Macron is the most monarchical of presidents since de Gaulle. He may decide to persist and appeal to the judgment of history. If so, the outcome is anyone’s guess.

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