At the strike of midnight Brussels time on 1 January 2021, the long wait for Britain to leave the European Union finally came to an end with a whimper, not a bang. What has been called "the slowest moving bullet in history. Four-and-a-half years from gun to foot" finally hit its target. Now that Brexit is done, the EU appears stronger, the United Kingdom as divided as ever, and France remains vigilant that historic, cross-channel rivalries are kept in check. But could the Brexit cloud hold a silver lining for Paris?

2020 will go down in history as the year the world was turned on its head as an ill-prepared planet scrambled to face down the first global pandemic in a century. With countries falling like dominos into lockdown and panicked populations coming to terms with the new normal of social distancing, teleworking and quarantine, millions succumbed to Covid-19, killing hundreds of thousands worldwide.