Part V - International Relations and Diplomacy
Sovereign trade policy
Trade policy is one of the domains where France has most profoundly abdicated its sovereignty by transferring exclusive trade competence to the European Union. The restoration of commercial sovereignty is an immediate priority of the transition.
The recovery of trade competence
From the moment of exiting the EU, France regains full control of its trade policy. It denounces the free trade agreements negotiated by the EU in its name and renegotiates them according to its own interests. The Planning Commission conducts an exhaustive audit of each existing agreement in the first six months of the transition.
Guiding principles
Reciprocity: France opens its market to the extent that its partners open theirs. It does not accept an asymmetry in which its products face barriers abroad while foreign products access the French market freely.
The protection of strategic sectors: certain sectors are explicitly excluded from any trade agreement - defence, energy, water, health, basic foodstuffs, critical technologies -.
The prohibition of products non-compliant with French standards: any imported product that does not respect standards equivalent to those imposed on French producers is prohibited from sale on the national territory - health, environmental, social and fiscal standards. A tax is not sufficient: prohibition is the only response coherent with a sovereignist vision of standards. Heavy sanctions target any circumvention mechanism.
Strategic partnership rather than free trade
France is not a free trader. Free trade is never neutral over time: it crystallizes power relations that evolve, and what is favorable at T can be devastating at T+10. France does not sign global free trade agreements. It concludes highly targeted strategic and commercial partnerships, sector by sector, with precise objectives and regular revision clauses.
On relations with neighboring European countries that maintain a common market among themselves - if Germany, Italy and Spain remain in the EU - France deals with this bloc as a single entity and not with each member separately, to avoid circumvention via cross-cutting bilateral agreements.
Currency as a commercial instrument
The restoration of monetary sovereignty gives France a commercial lever it has not had since the adoption of the euro. The capacity to adjust the exchange rate is an instrument of commercial competitiveness: without seeing in this a mechanical link with inflation, which depends on many other factors and can be controlled through management of the money supply in circulation.
Trade as an instrument of foreign policy
Access to the French market is an asset that France can offer or withhold depending on the behavior of its partners: on questions of migrant readmission, respect for bilateral agreements, security cooperation. All major powers practice this instrumentalization of trade in the service of diplomacy. France resumes it with the same consistency.