Britain -v- France? Not really.

Macron is fighting for his political life at the moment, and is setting-up his fellow EU26 colleagues for a sub. The Brexit talks in which France has set impossible targets for M Barnier are really not at all about Brexit, as is becoming clear. Barely £2.6bn of the EU's trade surplus of £66bn is France's, so unlike Germany and Spain she has little to lose. He knows he has no chance of the UK giving up our fishing rights, or of becoming a rule-taker, and even less chance of our subjecting ourselves to the ECJ. So why give M Barnier such unachievable objectives?

France has the biggest State in Europe, with tax at the EU's highest rate of 48.4% of GDP. Her farmers and fishers are heavily subsidised by Europe's taxpayers and by raiding UK waters. These advantages are set to be challenged post-Brexit, and you can be sure that the EU budget process for the next seven year cycle will not have decided anything by June, the crunch date for the Brexit talks. Macron will obstruct and clog up EU deliberations, using his veto as required, until it is clear Barnier is unable to achieve his brief.

Macron's plan is that at this point the remaining EU26 will agree to bung even more wodge in France's direction to enable Macron to pay-off his farmers and fishers and soften pension reform. Add to this even more money that he wants for France now being the EU's only credible military member, for the 26 to buy into his seat at the UN and his Force de frappe. Then he'll agree an EU-UK trade deal.

However, if this much is apparent to us, you can bet it's also crystal clear to the Frugal Five (Austria, Denmark Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden) and particularly to Germany - whose taxpayers will have to pay for France's relaxed lifestyle. Will Macron win? Who knows. Now it's getting interesting.

EU/EEA, the UK, San Marino, Monaco and Switzerland 2/3/20
	Cases	Deaths
Italy	1689	35
France	130	2
Germany	129	0
Spain	83	0
United Kingdom	36	0
Switzerland	24	0
Norway	19	0
Austria	14	0
Sweden	14	0
Netherlands	13	0
San Marino	8	1
Croatia	7	0
Greece	7	0
Finland	6	0
Denmark	4	0
Romania	3	0
Czech Republic	3	0
Iceland	3	0
Belgium	2	0
Ireland	1	0
Luxembourg	1	0
Estonia	1	0
Lithuania	1	0
Monaco	1	0
Total	2199	38

AEP skiing off-piste

I normally devour anything that AEP delivers through the pages of the Telegraph, but this morning's column, departing as it does from his safe territory of finance and economics, has him skiing off-piste. He tries to construct a close match between France's Macron and Boris - that Boris is closer to the little Emperor than he is to the Donald - but it doesn't really hold. Here's why.

• AEP is correct in labelling Macron a nationalist - and his adoption of the Cross of Lorraine confirms it. However, Boris is not. I've no doubt he is patriotic, but nationalistic, no. Boris is a sophisticated Internationalist - committed to Britain and her place in the world.

• Because Boris is an Internationalist, he is in complete opposition to Macron's Globalist agenda. But he's a pragmatist, and will sup with the global corporates if it suits him. Macron however is committed to what Supranational authority, global government and global corporatism can deliver to a France hungry for power

• Boris is at heart a small-State social liberal. Macron is at core a Big-Government central Statist and deeply socially conservative.

• Yes, they both have elitist backgrounds - Boris at Eton, Macron the énarque - but Boris has the common touch and genuinely little 'side' to him whilst Macron has donned the gilded mantle of French State pomposity with the hauteur of a little Emperor.

I can see the point that AEP is striving for. Let me help him. No, Boris is not a Trump facsimile. But it is because he is a European that he and Macron can understand eachother. There. I've said it. Let me repeat it; I'm also European, and proud of it. Europe is a continent of 740m peoples, only 460m of whom live in nations under the heel of the EU.

Macron's 'Five year' pledge is pure fantasy

Little Macron confirmed his status as a fantasist yesterday when he pledged that repairs to Notre Dame would be finished in five years. He featured on this blog previously for his vision of Europe based on the computer game Sim City, a teenage boy's pubescent make-believe fantasy world.

Using structural steel or reinforced concrete one can create large buildings quickly. Portland cement gains strength rapidly. Gypsum plasters set almost instantly. Off-site manufacturing of entire bathrooms and kitchens which are craned into place is increasingly common. Click-together polymeric components even avoid Tadeusz, his nailbag and hammer.

However, lime mortars and lime plasters mean slow building - as does ashlar or cut stone. Lime mortars cure by CO2, and this can take months. When cathedrals were first built, the building season halted in the Autumn, before the first frosts. Recent work was covered in straw and thatched and left to cure for several months. There are no accelerants for hydraulic lime.

The damage to cracked but uncollapsed rib-vaults at Notre Dame will be infinitely harder to repair than the collapsed ones. Those flying buttresses are presently pushing the roofless walls inwards, and a temporary but substantial steel structure will be needed to stabilise the nave - wind loadings could still collapse the fragile structure.

Not to mention finding sufficient European Oak timbers. As an aside, a Nelson-era frigate took about 600 oak trees to build - and we had a fleet of 900 ships. Those oaks were planted in the 17th century by Pepys expressly for that future purpose. We no longer have a reserve of large structural oaks. For the stone, old quarries must be re-opened, masons recruited from all over Europe and the cathedral close will be alive with the clink of stone on bankers.

My own guess is twenty years. At least between fifteen and twenty-five. Something in that scale. Notre Dame will be covered with a vast temporary roof and be encumbered within by a massive steel structural frame for a generation. Macron is a fool and away with the fairies.

And now for the first of my EP election memes - I return to Twitter for such events with all the enthusiasm of a plumber clearing a blocked toilet.