In an effort to improve military and commercial ties, step up efforts against Channel migrant crossings, and mend relations following post-Brexit hostilities, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak met with French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday in Paris.
As Sunak appeared at the presidential palace, the two leaders shook hands and smiled for the cameras.
The French-British summit, the first since 2018, is set to show a “new chapter” is opening in relations between the two countries said Macron’s office. Such an event was previously held almost every year.
Relations between the U.K. and France chilled amid post-Brexit wrangling over fishing rights and other issues, and hit rock-bottom under Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who took delight in needling the French. His successor, Liz Truss, ruffled French feathers last year when she said the “jury is out” on whether Macron was a friend or a foe.
The mood improved after pragmatic, technocratic Sunak assumed office in October following Truss’ brief and economically destabilizing tenure, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine brought Britain and its European neighbors closer together in support of Kyiv.
In an effort to support British efforts to forge ties with European neighbours, Sunak’s journey also takes place two weeks before King Charles III makes his first state trips as a monarch to France and then Germany.
”The summit will be above all an opportunity to reaffirm and deepen the close cooperation in terms of military support for Ukraine,” according to the statement from Macron’s Elysee Palace, as both countries are the only nuclear powers in the region.
A delegation of seven senior ministers from each country will take part, including those responsible for foreign affairs, defense and domestic issues.
France and the U.K. plan to strengthen military cooperation, including on supplying weapons to Kyiv and training Ukrainian Marines.
The British government said Sunak and Macron also will discuss ”establishing the backbone to a permanent European maritime presence in the Indo-Pacific” by coordinating deployment to the region of France’s Charles de Gaulle and the U.K.’s Queen Elizabeth and Prince of Wales aircraft carriers.
