Wow.

Those numbers are also wildly at odds with the limits that France is supposed to meet as a member of the European Union.

The European Union is a currency union, and so when one country, particularly one as large as France and as central as France to the European project, is running unsustainable debts, it actually threatens the entire structure of the EU.

And so France's problems are not just France's alone.

They're also problems for its neighbors.

And this is a situation that Emmanuel Macron came into office nearly 10 years ago vowing to fix.

He came in as a former economics minister, a former investment banker, and he promised to do two things: one, pass economic policies that rejuvenated the French economy, but also to be fiscally prudent, to try to balance France's books.

I remember, you know, all these, these photos of people taking to the streets, and it seemed like they were also really angry that at the same time as he was trying to cut benefits, he was also cutting taxes for the rich.

What does it look like from the ground in a place like Bordeaux?

So I arrived in Bordeaux last Sunday at around 3:30, 4:00 in the afternoon.

And that was a particularly bad day because the wind was blowing, uh, from the west to the east, so all the smoke from the fire was blowing directly over the city from a distance of about 20 miles away.

So as the train pulled into this very beautiful, old, soaring station, there was a really apocalyptic scene, a sort of a deep yellow orange cloud that was sort of hanging over the entire city.

You, you couldn't see the sun.

It really had blotted out the sun.

The spires of the cathedral, which are, are a real landmark in Bordeaux, you could sort of barely pick them out in the distance.

On the other hand, this region is burning right now, and this would be the exact right time to recommit to some of these policies and goals.

Do you think that's a reasonable summary?

Well, there's no question that Keir Starmer ended up being, uh, perhaps more successful internationally than he did domestically.

Um, and, and that sets up an interesting potential contrast with Burnham, because Burnham's made it quite clear he'd really like to focus heavily on domestic policy, on rebuilding the UK, uh, on rebuilding and changing the politics of the UK.

Um, and it'll be a real tension to see how much, uh, freedom and time he has to do that given the intense international obligations that any UK, uh, prime minister faces.

And I think if you were to ask Keir Starmer now one of the surprises of his time in Downing Street, it might be just how much of his time-

What, what, what do you think the Burnham approach might be?

Well, it, it will be interesting to see, and I wouldn't be surprised if Burnham, uh, initially puts a little bit more distance between himself and Trump than Starmer did for the simple reason that, as you say, all of that, um, cultivation and all of those charm offensives and all of those state visits from the king, um, really didn't leave Starmer in a very good place, uh, when, when the two countries divided over the Iran war, and I think it goes to show the limitations of some of that kind of personal diplomacy.

So th- by no means will Andy Burnham seek to change the nature of the, of the alliance.

Do you think that's a reasonable summary?

Well, there's no question that Keir Starmer ended up being, uh, perhaps more successful internationally than he did domestically.

Um, and, and that sets up an interesting potential contrast with Burnham, because Burnham's made it quite clear he'd really like to focus heavily on domestic policy, on rebuilding the UK, uh, on rebuilding and changing the politics of the UK.

Um, and it'll be a real tension to see how much, uh, freedom and time he has to do that given the intense international obligations that any UK, uh, prime minister faces.

And I think if you were to ask Keir Starmer now, one of the surprises of his time in Downing Street, it might be just how much of his time-

What, what, what do you think the Burnham approach might be?

Well, it, it will be interesting to see, and I wouldn't be surprised if Burnham, uh, initially puts a little bit more distance between himself and Trump than Starmer did for the simple reason that, as you say, all of that, um, cultivation and all of those charm offensives and all of those state visits from the King, um, really didn't leave Starmer in a very good place, uh, when, when the two countries divided over the Iran war.

And I think it goes to show the limitations of some of that kind of personal diplomacy.

And is that true, Marc? Like, w- what could they do actually?

Well, Europe has a couple of, um, competencies.

One is, uh, in the area of clearing mines.

They do have mine sweeping ships.

There is a, a very healthy debate about whether Iran has actually laid mines in the Strait of Hormuz, but if there was evidence they had, the Europeans could send minesweepers.

The Europeans could also send frigates to escort oil, uh, tankers through the strait.

That is something that European navies have.

And what about the domestic politics of this for these European leaders? How are these specific politicians dealing with the potential fallout of both getting involved or not getting involved at home?

Is that the right assumption?

I mean, in a sense what he's done is driven these countries into the arms of China because one thing that all of these European and other middle power countries are gonna have to reckon with is if they can't rely on the United States, if you can't rely on being a member of the American camp, you i- in a sense have to balance between the great powers and the great commercial power, the great economic power of the future is China.

So one of the things that I think you will see much more of is Europeans, the Canadians, and others going to China, fashioning deeper ties with China, being more open to China, and as you pointed out, that is precisely what Trump set out to avoid, and that's what successive American administrations have always set as a, as a priority, which is to use our great alliances, not just militarily, but economically and build this great coalition that would be a proper competitor for China.

Now you're gonna see countries instead of saying, "We're with the United States," they're gonna say, "Well, we're gonna balance our interests.

We're gonna hedge against this uncertainty that we now perceive in the United States, and we're gonna do it by drawing closer to China."

Like, he would've expanded US territory, demonstrated raw American power, and, you know, pushing smaller countries into the arms of China, he may just view that as an inevitable result of his quest to realize this worldview that he has, which you, Marc, have described on this show that the great powers should divide the globe into these spheres of influence that they dominate.

Yeah, that's exactly right.

I think that in Trump's world, it's the great powers that set the tone for everybody else.

He's had to U-turn, but, you know, no heads have rolled.

Right.

I mean, I, I've asked that question myself and tried to address it once or twice in, in articles, uh, including when Mountbatten-Windsor (laughs) and, uh, Peter Mandelson both came up in the latest round of Epstein files, and I asked a few people here in London what they thought, and the answer was, sort of, like, along the lines of, "There is a, sort of, a Wild West amorality in Donald Trump's Washington that doesn't exist in the cloistered world of London politics, uh, and the royal family, and there are still standards that need to be upheld here." Uh, that's one take I had on this.

I would say, just by way of adding one caveat to it, I do think Larry Summers' downfall over the last week may be the first sign I've seen of a guy who's a, sort of, a charter member of the Davos elite in the United States, uh, really losing almost everything.

He still has his tie to Harvard University, but even Harvard is now reviewing that and may, in fact, sever that ag- that arrangement.

So this is, to my mind, one of the first big scalps that has been taken in the United States.

But you're right.

I mean, uh, what do you make of it and what's happening at the BBC?

Mm-hmm.

If you go back in time, there was a moment when Netanyahu claimed he supported a two-state solution, as did a lot of mainstream Israeli leaders.

Though it must be said that if you look at Netanyahu's actions over the years, he's really consistently undermined the prospect for a Palestinian state, whether it is expanding Jewish settlements in the West Bank or colluding with Hamas in the governance of Gaza, which had the effect of splitting the Palestinian movement in two.

His actions have never been geared toward allowing or encouraging the creation of a Palestinian state.

Now, in some senses, he's being clearer.

He's saying quite publicly that at the moment, he thinks a Palestinian state is a dire threat to Israel's security, but he's not willing to completely defy an American president, especially Donald Trump, when he includes this kind of fairly wishy-washy language in his plan for Gaza.

So I think from Netanyahu's point of view, he sees this as something he's simply going to have to live with, and perhaps he's also confident that Hamas will never accept it anyway, so he won't be forced to live with anything that's in this plan anyway.

And I wonder, just listening to everything that you've outlined, do you think that that optimism is misplaced?

Does it matter that he's lost some of his top table heading into this visit?

Well, yeah, he clearly is in a weakened position.

And unfortunately for him on a symbolic level, as far as the Mandelson case goes, the reason he had to cut loose his ambassador is the very same association with Jeffrey Epstein, the late billionaire and sexual predator that has afflicted Donald Trump for the past several months.

Questions about Trump's association with Epstein of course, have been a big problem for Trump with his own supporters.

He's managed to really fend off a lot of that pressure in the last few weeks.

Mandelson, like Trump, had a long-ago association with Epstein, and for Mandelson, it was untenable.

And the British government had to fire him summarily.

You know, how do you see the relationship? How do you anticipate it being told during the state visit?

And you have been covering Europe and the White House for decades, so I'm just really curious what you are making of this moment.

Well, you called it a seeming breakdown, which actually might underplay what's going on in the Transatlantic relationship right now.

Just since President Trump took office, you've seen him openly undermine the NATO alliance.

You've seen him threaten that the US will no longer provide a security umbrella for Europe.

You saw him essentially side with Russia against Ukraine.

You know, you alluded to the tariffs that he's imposed not just on Mexico and Canada, but now on the European Union.

So when you add all this up, it's really causing Europeans to question the very survival of this alliance that has characterized the post-World War II era.

Right.

Is this a rerun?

I do think something has changed, but the change is not in Trump's own comportment or the way he behaves.

In fact, that looks to me like it's becoming quite a rerun of 2017.

You know, the, the sort of tweets where he pops off, the personal nature of everything, firing people on Truth Social or on Twitter.

All of that feels very reminiscent.

The difference is everything that's beneath the surface, and you see that in this, you know, massive rollout of executive orders that have clearly been teed up for months, if not even longer, by people like Stephen Miller and other members of his brain trust.

So you have a much more organized kind of substructure, um, but it's operating underneath a guy who's every bit as capricious and unpredictable, uh, as he was, uh, eight years ago.

What did you make of it?