This article is also available in: French

PARIS — France is cultivating a little-known asset in Brexit talks that officials credit with ironclad readiness to confront almost any scenario, including Britain's disorderly exit from the EU: "Le Brexit task force."

The French state was quick to begin its preparations for Brexit, ordering some 40 high-level civil servants to start planning for the U.K.'s departure almost immediately after Britain's vote to leave the EU, according to officials familiar with the plans.

The task force began its work under former President François Hollande, around the time that the U.K. established its own Department for Exiting the European Union. But it was officials like Philippe Léglise-Costa, then head of France's EU affairs directorate, and socialist Bernard Cazeneuve, then socialist interior minister, who is well-versed in Franco-British affairs, who were to thank for the head start, officials said.

"Cazeneuve was a real motor, probably the main one, insofar as getting the French state moving on Brexit as early as July last year," said Jean-Paul Mulot, who is the official representative for France's northern Hauts-de-France region in Britain. "He was on the front line on many Franco-British issues, and he saw what was coming."

Mulot's vast Hauts-de-France region, which encompasses Calais and the Channel crossing, is one of Europe's busiest thoroughfares and the main artery of trade between Britain and the Continent.

“Without the French, the positions of the rest of the 27 might be a good deal less unified and solid than they are today" — EU diplomat

In Britain, an army of civil servants is now at work on every aspect of the Brexit negotiations. But while Britain's negotiating position is the subject of intense — and public — political wrangling, French administrators have enjoyed the freedom to prepare in quasi-secret, met by public indifference. In other words, Brexit became a technocratic challenge — of precisely the sort at which France excels.

"When it comes to setting up an administration, organizing a vertical chain of command, the French are in a league of their own. That's what they brought to this task: good old French methods," said one EU diplomat, who is not French.

The diplomat added: "Without the French, the positions of the rest of the 27 might be a good deal less unified and solid than they are today."

'Ahead of the Germans'

The task force, which holds regular physical meetings, is charged with examining every possible implication of Brexit for France across 20 areas, and started to meet in July of 2016.

"We've been well ahead of others, even the Germans," said a senior diplomat who's part of the task force and asked not to be named.

For each area of interest, it has drawn up contingency plans examining all possible outcomes, including a "soft" and "hard" exit from the EU. Paris considers a transition arrangement between Britain and the EU to be a "non-negotiable" part of the process. "The transition must be a bridge toward a future relationship," added the diplomat.

However, with negotiations on Britain's financial settlement with the EU deadlocked and Prime Minister Theresa May weaker domestically, Paris is also prepared "on a theoretical basis" for the possibility of a "no-deal" British departure from the EU, the diplomat added.

Diplomats said the task force's work has contributed to the EU's coordinated approach to the negotiations.

"In France, we are able to think about what is good for Europe" — Senior diplomat

The group, which is in permanent virtual contact, held one of its last physical meetings in early October ahead of the European Council summit in Brussels, when leaders agreed there had not been "sufficient progress" on separation issues like citizens' rights and Britain's financial settlement to warrant talks on a future relationship with the EU.

"In France, we are able to think about what is good for Europe," said the senior diplomat.

The group was particularly focused on Brexit-linked risks to financial stability as well as "the risks of any distortion of competition if the U.K. changes its rules."

However, Paris is also firmly focused on what France wants to get out of its relationship with Britain after Brexit. "Our interest and favorite option is the status quo," said the senior diplomat. "We want to preserve the overall coherence of our current relationship with the U.K.," notably for fisheries, as France is keen to preserve access to British ports for French boats.

In the end, the senior diplomat said, London would have to accept that the EU sets rules for the negotiations and that the British people would be "the rule takers rather than the rule makers."

"It will be hard for them to realize this," the senior diplomat added.