Part V - International Relations and Diplomacy
Exit from the European Union and European relations
Exiting the European Union is not an objective in itself: it is a logical and inevitable consequence of the restoration of sovereignty. As long as France remains a member of the EU as it is currently constructed, it does not control its monetary policy, its trade policy, its competition rules, its agricultural standards, its external borders.
The exit: method and timeline
Exiting the EU is a vital urgency: it features in the first priority level of the transition. Remaining inside a Union conscious of its survival during the transition period would be a major strategic error. The exit is therefore carried out swiftly, without prior substantive negotiation. One notifies, one exits, one negotiates afterward from a position of full sovereignty.
The Banque de France immediately regains control of monetary issuance. The franc is restored. The return to monetary sovereignty is the most powerful lever of economic reappropriation.
Exiting the euro carries real short-term risks, known, documented and addressable. Capital controls applied from day one, on the Icelandic model of 2008, contain capital flight. Imported inflation is temporary and manageable, comparable in order of magnitude to that of the covid shock of 2020-2022. The debt is converted into francs by application of the lex monetae, a principle of international law that recognizes the sovereign right of a state to define its own currency. A moratorium on the deferral of debt interest repayments frees up the room for maneuver necessary to finance the transition. These mechanisms and their precise costings are developed in the economic annex.
What we keep, what we leave behind
We leave without regret the policy of free and undistorted competition, the common trade policy, the single currency and Schengen. We retain however the cooperations that serve the national interest: Airbus as a bilateral industrial programme, Erasmus renegotiated as a bilateral agreement, certain scientific and technological cooperations, targeted judicial cooperation. The dividing line is simple: we keep what constitutes concrete cooperation between sovereign states on specific subjects, we leave what constitutes a delegation of sovereignty to a supranational institution.
Relations with European countries
The Franco-German relationship within the EU was structurally imbalanced: Germany imposed its monetary and budgetary vision, France endured it. Outside the EU, this relationship cannot immediately be rebuilt on genuine equality: as long as Germany remains a member of the Union, it has no real bilateral room for maneuver. Its trade policy, competition rules and monetary policy are constrained by the European treaties. Negotiating with Berlin means negotiating with the bloc. France takes note of this reality and treats the EU for what it is: a commercial and regulatory entity, not a political partner. If Germany or other member states make the sovereign choice to exit this tutelage, precise bilateral agreements on industry, energy, defence and research will become possible - between equals, without supranational mediation.
For countries that have made the sovereign choice to exit the EU, France proposes a direct, transparent relationship without supranational intermediary: concrete, thematic, reversible cooperations, forged state to state. Variable geometry is the rule. Regarding Belgium, the distinction between Wallonia and Flanders is essential: Wallonia maintains deep organic links with France - cultural, linguistic, economic, human. Flanders, which dominates the country politically and economically, has a strategic and commercial orientation that looks more toward the Netherlands, Germany and the United States, as evidenced by its purchase of American armaments to the detriment of national or continental alternatives. French diplomacy takes this reality into account without deluding itself about a Belgian francophone solidarity that does not always translate into action.