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French-UK relations have often been in the political and economic “deep freeze” since Brexit. Yet the two G7 and G20 nations have reemerged in recent years as regional leaders, including building Europe’s relationship with US President Donald Trump’s administration.

The warmer Franco-UK ties were showcased again this week with President Emmanuel Macron making his first UK state visit, to London and Windsor Castle. The last such state visit by a French president to the UK was by Nicolas Sarkozy almost two decades ago in 2008.

While Starmer enjoys a good relationship with Macron, the warming of UK ties with France actually began under his predecessor as prime minister, Rishi Sunak, after the latter agreed to a deal on the so-called Northern Ireland protocol between London and Brussels. This removed a huge post-Brexit barrier in UK relations with the 27 EU member states.

Moreover, both Macron and Sunak assumed their nation’s highest public office at an early age. Previously, both had served as finance ministers having previously earned their fortunes in the financial services industry.

The warming of the so-called UK-French entente cordiale has continued under Starmer, and with King Charles and his mother, the late Queen Elizabeth, both playing a key role in bilateral relations in recent times, too. Charles made a state visit to France in 2023, and Macron spoke of the late queen’s affection for France when he attended her funeral.

Queen Elizabeth made many trips to France during her reign. Her first was in 1957, four years after her coronation; her last state visit was in June 2014, when she visited Paris and Normandy. This week, Macron laid flowers at her tomb in Windsor.

Specific issues on the agenda this week included migration, and shared foreign policy and security goals, such as Ukraine and the Trump administration’s trade tariffs. There is a potential upside in many of these issues from a stronger UK-France relationship.

Take the example of security whereby London and Paris are nuclear states with UN Security Council permanent membership, unlike other European partners. The 2010 Lancaster House agreement opened a window to jointly update nuclear arsenals which is, as yet unfulfilled, and there is potential for broader military coordination.

Positive as this all is, however, bilateral ties continue to have some challenges in the post-Brexit era. During those long UK-EU divorce negotiations, France took one of the hardest lines on the UK’s exit from the Brussels-based club.

This reflects the complex, contradictory relationship that Paris has long had with London in the context of EU affairs. The ardently pro-Brussels Macron, who believes Brexit to be an act of political vandalism to the Continent, was frequently accused by UK ministers of holding up progress in exit negotiations after the UK’s 2016 referendum.

The warmer Franco-UK ties were showcased this week with President Macron making his first UK state visit. 

Andrew Hammond

Macron’s Brexit positioning, including his robust stance on precluding future UK access to the single market, was reinforced by broader French plans to pitch Paris as a competing financial center to London which began in earnest under the presidency of Francois Hollande. This saw former Finance Minister Michel Sapin and Hollande’s Brexit Special Envoy Christian Noyer, former Bank of France governor, openly promoting Paris with key financial firms.

This has continued under Macron as he hailed the decision to relocate the European Banking Agency to Paris from London as “recognition of France’s attractiveness and European commitment.” French officials hope that the EBA’s relocation will help bring still more UK banking jobs to the French capital.

What France’s position on Brexit underlines is how each EU state has distinctive political, economic, and social interests that have informed their stance on the UK’s exit. Thus, while the EU-27 were in general remarkably unified in their negotiations with London, the positions of the individual countries varied according to factors such as trade and wider economic ties and patterns of migration with the UK, domestic election pressures, and levels of Euroskeptic support within their populations.

The divergent and complex positions of EU states thus range from the UK’s fellow non-eurozone member Sweden, whose political and economic interests are broadly aligned with UK positions, to countries that have more complicated positions, including France. While the position of Paris has now moderated, especially in the wake of the Northern Ireland protocol deal, the two nations remain misaligned in some key areas, including fishing rights.

Take another example of migration where Sunak and Macron struck an initial agreement to stop people illegally crossing the English Channel. That deal stepped up UK payments to France to increase patrols on its beaches and led to closer police collaboration.

However, the numbers making the crossing did not decline. This led Sunak to announce a law to try to make asylum claims inadmissible from those who travel to the UK in small boats.

Today, Starmer is under growing pressure to deliver on this agenda, too, including from the new Reform UK party led by top Brexiteer Nigel Farage. This week, Starmer and Macron agreed on a new “one in, one out” return scheme under which the UK would deport to France undocumented people arriving in small boats in return for accepting an equal number of legitimate asylum-seekers with UK family connections. Only time will tell how successful this will be in halting illegal migrants making so-called small boat crossings of the English Channel.

Taken together, this underlines that relations are positive between Starmer and Macron. However, the distinctive post-Brexit interests of Paris and London will continue to drive bilateral tensions from time to time, and this will remain a barrier to a full reset of relations.

• Andrew Hammond is an associate at LSE IDEAS at the London School of Economics.