On Friday President Emmanuel Macron welcomed Volodymyr Zelensky to the Elysée with great fanfare. The Ukrainian president was in Paris to sign a ten-year bilateral military agreement for France to supply and finance Kiev’s war effort and reconstruction, having already signed similar agreements with Britain and Germany. But behind Macron’s window dressing is France’s acute embarrassment at its low level of military support for Ukraine since the war began nearly two years ago.

According to Germany’s highly respected Kiel Institute, cited in Le Monde, France is ranked 15th in terms of its military support for Ukraine. This is way behind the US’s contribution (€43.9 billion – equivalent to nearly £38 billion) which alone totals more than the whole of Europe’s. Germany comes second (after its initial reluctance) and the UK third. According to Kiel, France’s contribution to Kiev is €600 million (£513 million), compared to the UK’s £9.3 billion and Germany’s €17.7 billion (£14.6 billion).

The result of such an agreement would be a straitjacket for British foreign policy

Macron’s recent claim that France will defend Ukraine as long as it takes therefore rings hollow. All the more so when the French president constantly turns down Ukraine’s request for French Mirage 2000D ground attack aircraft.

Ironically, France’s miserly support for Ukraine comes at a time when Macron is unabashedly pushing the EU to develop its collective defence. But it has not gone unnoticed by France’s EU partners, foremost among them Germany and Poland. Unerred by criticism – as is his wont – Macron is doubling down on integrated EU defence and his quest to lock Britain into it.

According to the Guardian, one of Macron’s close foreign policy advisors and member of the French parliament’s European committee, Benjamin Haddad, was in London recently to discuss the UK’s role in this integrated European defence. Haddad claims that during Brexit negotiations Michel Barnier missed an opportunity to come away with a security and defence agreement with London. ‘I hope it is something we can revamp in the context of Ukraine and the American elections’, he stated.

Clearly Macron has his sights on an incoming inexperienced Labour government that could be perhaps inveigled into signing up to an EU military, defence and procurement treaty in exchange for some minor adjustments to the Brexit agreement when it comes up for review in 2025. The result would be a straitjacket, not only for Britain’s defence, armed forces and defence industries, but also for British foreign policy. Formal military commitments to the EU could constrain British participation in others, such as the Aukus defence agreements with Australia and the US for the Indo-Pacific.

Macron and his acolytes are having a field day following Donald Trump’s recent hints at a lesser US commitment to Nato. For them it legitimises the idea of an EU integrated defence, not only for EU members, but also the UK. Benjamin Haddad even went as far as to suggest that America’s nuclear umbrella for Europe could be withdrawn under a Trump administration rendering closer nuclear cooperation with London necessary. In an irony of ironies, given France’s meagre support for Kiev, Haddad even complimented the British Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron on his recent critical remarks about American lawmakers refusing to vote through additional credits for Ukraine.

Under the Franco-British Lancaster House defence treaties signed in 2010 by Nicolas Sarkozy and Cameron during his time as prime minister, bilateral cooperation on nuclear issues is specifically mentioned. But if Britain is not careful this could end up being very one-sided cooperation. With Emmanuel Macron in power there is always the possibility that he will take advantage of Franco-British defence cooperation for EU defence aims.

Britain should take the fact that France, itself, never completely committed to Nato as a warning. Despite having rejoined Nato’s integrated command in 2009 – after 44 years in the wild – France has always rejected membership of the alliance’s nuclear planning group and shows no sign of ever wishing to join. Given the French taboo of nuclear sharing inherited from General de Gaulle, France regards total sovereignty over its nuclear force de frappe as vital to her survival, haunted as it is by the spectre of 1940.

Just as France’s defence posture and foreign policy is grounded in her geography, history and interests, so should Britain’s. Historically, most notably in the nineteenth century, Britain was well served by avoiding becoming entangled in continental commitments in times of peace. Without falling into splendid isolation it was, in general, able to maintain its freedom of decision in the final hour before war broke out. We would do well to remember that.