Walking slowly on the Louvre Plaza in central Paris, earnestly with almost no smile on his face, France's President-elect Emmanuel Macron took to the stage to address the French nation after his landslide victory not to the French National Anthem, the Marsellaise, but to the EU anthem. Based on the final movement of Beethoven's 9th Symphony composed in 1823, and Friedrich Schiller's poem “To Joy” written in 1785 as a “celebration of the brotherhood of man”, the composition was adopted in 1972 as the EU official anthem. However, few people recognised it, and therefore many perhaps did not understand the significance of Macron's choice to play it before addressing the French nation. Nonetheless, if the significance of the EU anthem eluded some, the EU flags side by side with French flags, and Macron's first foreign visit to Germany to meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel, tells one everything one needs to know about the feelings of the French president-elect towards the EU and its future. Mr Macron is going to make the Brexit negotiations between the UK and the EU a lot harder. As a Europhile, he described Brexit in his election manifesto as a “crime” that had left Britain facing “servitude” rather than “taking back control”. In response to the UK government position to leave the single market but with a trade agreement that will give it the “greatest possible access”, Mr Macron expressed his determination to “defend the integrity” of the single market, ensuring that all firms trying to access it must comply with the same rules — ie freedom of labour movement, which Britain is adamant to stop. To emphasise his position, he said: “We have to accept that there are losses. But it's the British who will lose the most. You cannot enjoy rights in Europe if you are not a member — otherwise, it will fall apart. The British are making a serious mistake over the long term.” It is obvious why Macron's victory is a relief for pro-Europeans who after Brexit and the election of US President Donald Trump feared the prospect of nationalists and far-right populists taking power or becoming a majority in the Netherlands, France, Italy and Germany. No one in the EU institutions could hide their joy after the result. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said he was “happy” that the ideas of a “strong and progressive Europe” would be preserved under Macron's presidency. It is a testing and challenging time in Europe, but the signs are very encouraging. The far-right waves are receding at least for now. And the coming two to three years are pivotal in the survival of the European project as the real Brexit negotiations will take off in the autumn of this year to be concluded by March 2019. The new French president, being a hardcore European, is crucial because Germany will need France firmly on her side and the EU side when crunch times come. And Macron is the ideal partner. He is a very tough negotiator, aware of the economic challenges ahead in France and Europe, proposed EU reform ideas during his campaign and above all, he does not like Brexit. In his view, if it must happen, it should be to the benefit of France and the EU. In interview with Bloomberg shortly after announcing his candidacy, Macron said that Britain should not be given special treatment. “I am attached to a strict approach to Brexit: I respect the British vote, but the worst thing would be a sort of weak EU vis-à-vis the British,” he said. “I don't want a tailor-made approach where the British have the best of two worlds. That will be too big an incentive for others to leave and kill the European idea, which is based on shared responsibilities,” he added He denied he would “punish” Britain but added: “You don't get the [financial services] passport and you don't get access to the single market when you decide to leave.” During his visit to the UK in February, Macron went further when he said outright he would try to get “banks, talents, researchers, academics” to move to France in the wake of Brexit. So, the British Prime Minister Theresa May must have felt the pressure of his landslide victory. She needs friends in Europe and they are very few now. Last week in particular was tough. She clashed with European leaders privately and publicly over many issues. According to the Downing Street spokesperson, Mrs May, congratulated Mr Macron in a phone call after his win, adding that “she looked forward to working with the new president on a range of shared issues, with the UK and France's unique partnership providing a strong foundation for future cooperation.” During the phone call, the two leaders “briefly discussed Brexit” and the prime minister reiterated that the UK wants a “strong partnership with a secure and prosperous EU once we leave”. Mrs May would hope to work productively with Macron, but she knows he is as tough and difficult a negotiator as she is. Brexit, of course, is the main issue on the negotiating table, but there are other issues such as immigration, terrorism and reforming Le Touquet agreement that allows British immigration officers to check passports in Calais. When asked about the Brexit talks after Macron's big win, May replied by asking the British public to vote for the Conservative Party in the coming elections and to give her a big political mandate like the mandate Mr Macron got from the French people, to strengthen her hand in talks with the EU. Her call for snap general elections 8 June is designed to make sure she has enough of a majority in the House of Commons to follow through on her Brexit vision. Now more than ever Mrs May appears in need of a landslide win as her government's relations with EU officials are on very shaky ground after a war of words between herself and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker. In leaked details of last week's dinner between the European Commission president and Mrs May, Mr Juncker is said to have left Downing Street saying he felt “ten times more sceptical” about a deal with Britain than before, and to have told Angela Merkel that the British prime minister was “deluded”. During the dinner, Mrs May is said to have told Juncker and his team that the UK should not pay a Brexit bill, which some estimate to be up to £50 billion. Mr Juncker is said to have told her, “the EU is not a golf club” where members can leave at any time without any cost. A few days later, Mrs May accused the EU of trying to “deliberately” interfere in the UK general election in an unprecedented and extraordinary attack on Europe. The clash of words shows how far the UK's position is from the EU's position regarding Brexit, with both sides preparing for the worst-case scenario of “no deal”. Britain's best hope is friction inside the EU that allows her to play on European differences. So far, there are no such signs, and the EU knows how crucial it is to have one Brexit strategy. Nevertheless, the UK will be looking at the relationship between Macron and Merkel for any signs of disagreement. And there are signals already. Whether they are significant enough to play into the hands of Britain is too early to say. During his election campaign, Macron argued that the EU bloc needs reform, calling for the relaxing of Eurozone spending rules to allow more freedom for national governments. Germany's strict stance on spending and its own restrictive fiscal policies have been criticised repeatedly by other European countries as “dogmatic”. However, Merkel has dismissed the idea of helping Macron by relaxing Eurozone spending rules, saying she wanted to help France but “German support cannot replace French policymaking.” Mrs Merkel promised to help France fight unemployment and improve its economy and to cooperate closely with the president-elect, who “carries the hopes of millions of French people and also of many people in Germany and in the whole of Europe,” she said. But Mrs Merkel also said: “I don't see why — as a priority — we should change our policy.” Macron won with a strong pro-European message of hope and reform. So, it is hard to imagine him taking no for an answer from Merkel without a fight. It is hard to predict how he will act, in France and also in the EU, but he is not Francois Hollande, who was weak on the European stage as he was at home. However, for Macron to have real influence on Merkel and EU institutions he needs to do well first in France and to prove he is a powerful leader. Winning 65 per cent of the vote in the presidential election is only the first step. His party, En Marche, needs to build support and coalitions in the National Assembly where polls suggest it may struggle to form a majority in next month's elections. So, while is it clear that Mr Macron will play a key role in deciding the nature of the Brexit deal, it is far from clear what his influence might be in the EU and the kind of relationship he will develop with Europe's most powerful leader, Mrs Merkel.
