French President Emmanuel Macron will meet Rishi Sunak on the sidelines of COP27 on climate in Egypt on Monday, in their first face-to-face since the new British prime minister came to power, the French presidency announced on Sunday.
Emmanuel Macron spoke by phone with the conservative leader in late October. According to Downing Street, the two men had in particular decided to cooperate more against illegal Channel crossings.
Next, the head of the British government “stressed the importance for both countries of making the English Channel route completely impassable for people smugglers,” his services said.
An agreement “in the next few weeks”
In a column published this Sunday in the Mail on Sunday, British Home Secretary Suella Braverman says she is working with her French counterpart, Gérald Darmanin, “to build stronger cooperation and make better use of British surveillance.
The same newspaper reports that the UK hopes to sign an agreement on this explosive issue “in the coming weeks”.
Almost 40,000 people have already successfully crossed the Canal in small boats since the beginning of the year, far more than the 2021 record.
UK and France “neighbors and allies”
After a period of tensions between London and Paris, the government of Rishi Sunak, became Prime minister sur fond de grave political crise après les démissions, coup sur coup, by Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, semble adopt a ton plus conciliant à l’égard from France.
The head of the British Government thus underlined during his telephone conversation with Emmanuel Macron “the importance of the relationship between the United Kingdom and France, neighbor and ally” and said that he was “waiting” for a bilateral summit next year, according to his spokesman.
For his part, the French president mentioned his “availability” to “deepen the bilateral relationship” in “the fields of defense, strategic affairs and energy,” reported Elysée, without mentioning the thorny issue of migrants.
Source: BFM TV
