A harder Mers-el-Kébir strike changes risk more than politics

Would a heavier British attack at Mers-el-Kébir have caused substantially greater political difficulty?

Not fundamentally; the strike itself created the political crisis, while greater damage would mainly reduce the naval risk Britain feared.

A viewer asks whether a heavier attack at Mers-el-Kébir would have caused greater political difficulty. The decision to strike already created the central political problem. Additional damage would not fundamentally change that rupture. It would instead make the surviving French force less worrying to Britain as a potential asset for Germany.