June of this year several nations including France, Germany, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Estonia, Spain and Portugal, signed up to a European military intervention force which would deploy rapidly around the world.

“‘We must protect ourselves with respect to China, Russia, and even the United States,” declared Macron, striking a similar tone to another French leader suspicious of American leadership in Europe, President Charles De Gaule.

Macron’s controversial call at the time was greeted by tentative approval from Angela Merkel, who, in a thinly veiled swipe at Trump, argued that “the times when we could rely on others are over.”

The initiative, however, has come under fire from several quarters. Not least US President Donald Trump, who called the idea “very insulting”. At the time Trump savaged the idea of aEuropean army arguing it didn’t work out too well in World War II.

France and Germany in particular, find themselves in a precarious relationship with the United States, which has questioned the existence of NATO.

European powers feel increasingly uncomfortable and are coming to the realisation that Washington moving away from Europe under Trump may not be a short term event but a harbinger of the future state of the transatlantic relationship.

France’s role in pushing the EU to establish its defence and security mechanism is partly rooted in the country’s suspicion of NATO and US power.

It was De Gaule, the then President of France, who took France out of the integrated military command of NATO (though not its political command) and asked American and NATO troops to leave French soil