UNITED KINGDOM: Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will meet President Emmanuel Macron in the French capital this Friday, which is expected to bring to light the amicable rapport between the two leaders. The UK’s Brexit vote and the tension persisting in Europe in light of Russia’s attacks on Ukraine have created horrific ties between France and Britain.
Pierre Haski, a French journalist, would use the platform on Friday to address France and the UK, which hold great military powers. This meeting would sow the seeds for fresh cooperation between the two countries, with distinct similarities between the two leaders. Both of them attended popular schools before becoming erstwhile bankers and finance ministers, heralding essentially from the center-right.
Macron happened to be the youngest president in the history of France at the age of 39, while Sunak is 42 years old. However, bizarrely, none of them happened to have a strong popular mandate as Sunak took office following Liz Truss’s resignation, whereas the Renaissance Party of Macron moved a minority government after putting the parliamentary elections in a bad light.
Some people hurl criticism at both the leaders for their pride and ignorance: Sunak for his accumulated wealth, and Macron for his arrogant gestures. The UK and France held regular meetings on an annual basis, but the Brexit process created a lot of uneasiness between the two countries.
Peter Ricketts, a former UK ambassador, mentions, “The friction of Brexit fell on the UK-French relationship. We live next door to each other. No country has closer links to us in so many ways, whether it’s through family, business, or war commemorations. We are so very alike that our relationship is often a competitive one. It’s like sibling rivalry.”
However, the immediate concern over the Russia-Ukraine crisis has calmed both sides, giving them a perspective on resolving old matters and concentrating on the present, which involves solving geopolitical crises.
Sunak would be judged by voters in next year’s general elections on his role in stemming the arrival of migrants. In 2022, 46,000 people will have crossed the waters in boats, risking their lives, but the UK says Paris has not been successful in terminating the boats along France’s coastline. An Elysee official said this week that “Migration is not only an issue for the UK,” adding, “We need to accept a broader focus. It is not Britain versus the continent or Britain versus France. It is very much a global issue.”
The bipartisan atmosphere was eased with Brexit’s deal with the EU over Northern Ireland, calming complications involving trade issues at Dover and Calais.
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