Donald Trump and Emmanuel Macron have fostered a relationship that Britain can only envy – but it might not last

The key to Mr Macron’s success is a simple one. He leaves the political baggage at home

Viewed from a purely British perspective, the strange rapport between Emmanuel Macron and Donald Trump is, by turns, bewildering, annoying and sobering.

After all, few geopolitical relationships – with the glaring exception of the putative Trump-Kim Jong-un bromance – could be as unlikely as that being forged by the French and American presidents. Where Mr Trump is notoriously brittle and Twitter-trigger happy, Mr Macron is charming, cool and focused. Where Mr Trump is yet to show much aptitude for foreign languages, Mr Macron abandons the usual French linguistic chauvinism for political advantage.

Mr Macron happily tells his American audience, and the rest of the world, in softly accented English, about his high hopes and noble ambitions for his state visit, the first such honour accorded to a foreign leader by the Trump White House. Where Mr Trump is famously protectionist, nationalistic and sceptical about climate change and European unity, Mr Macron is the very antithesis. They say opposites attract, but this is getting ridiculous.

The key to Mr Macron’s success is a simple one. He leaves the political baggage at home in the Élysée. Like Tony Blair before him, who found himself having to get chummy with the neo-con George W Bush, Mr Macron plainly believes that it is in France’s national interest to put ideological differences aside, and concentrate on winning influence with the most powerful military power on earth, and its largest economy. The Americans elected Mr Trump, so Mr Macron deals with Mr Trump.

What’s more, like Mr Blair, Mr Macron has a facility for words and is supple and quick-witted in debate. He is, in other words, another consummate politician, in painful contrast to the perpetually on-edge Theresa May, now so weak that she cannot honour her earlier invitation of a state visit to London for the American president – thus, as ever, securing the worst of all worlds.

Mr Macron’s achievement cannot be overstated, at least so far. While Germany and Britain are being marginalised because of weak governments, lame-duck leaders and, in May’s case, Brexit, France is filling the vacuum. That was not inevitable, however, even allowing for the capricious Mr Trump’s shifting prejudices. Successive French leaders, notably Charles de Gaulle, but of all shades of politics since, have displayed an aloof, envious, almost snobbish attitude towards the other side of the Atlantic. France has in the past been an unwilling, semi-detached partner in Nato, for example, while in the last few decades Paris has also had to concede increasing political leadership in Europe to Berlin, which pays the bills for the European Union’s enlargements and recurring financial crises.

Now the pendulum has swung back decisively, helped also by the various crises of confidence and legitimacy seen in Madrid, Warsaw and Rome. It is a testament to Mr Macron that he has, as in the domestic sphere, taken risks and seized the unexpected diplomatic and political opportunities presented by the arrival of Donald Trump and the simultaneous eclipse of Theresa May and Angela Merkel.

The state visit to Washington of the Macrons confirms that France, for the first time, finds itself in a political role long coveted and usually occupied by the British. Mr Macron is crafting his own special bilateral relationship with the White House: France is reasserting herself as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council; it is a more active and collegiate player in Nato; a nuclear power; possessor of a large economy at last moving into growth and reform; and, crucially, the undisputed political driver of the European project.

France, and no longer Britain or Germany, is building the “bridge” between America and Europe. After Mr Macron’s next visit – to Vladimir Putin, in a few weeks’ time – France will also have established a clear role in bridging the divides between America and Britain, on one side, and Russia, on the other. Mr Macron, no stranger to vanity, can be excused some self-satisfaction with his handiwork.

France has not seen such an international ascendancy accomplished with such elan for many decades. It must pain the British Foreign Office and Downing Street to reflect on what might have been.

As the two presidents, their families and their staff members get to know each other better, then, there is much for the Macrons in particular to celebrate as they toast their mutual admiration with French and Californian wines.

Of course, there is no reason why things might not turn sour. Mr Macron has a habit of overstating his influence in DC, and Mr Trump will always put “America First”. Mr Trump might easily turn on his new friend, as he has so many of his own former staff, and ignore advice on the Iran nuclear agreement, impose tariffs on European steel, and withdraw US forces from Syria.

President Macron could end up looking very foolish. Yet at least he managed to win the chance to try to reason with the Americans. He may yet make some progress. En marche! indeed.