(Château d’Elmau) A frank and warm embrace, but still some ambiguities: Emmanuel Macron and Boris Johnson showed their desire on Sunday to warm the atmosphere, nine months after the Australian submarine crisis, without removing all the misunderstandings.
Posted at 1:16 p.m.
The two leaders met for a brief bilateral exchange just before the start of the G7 Summit at Elmau Castle in the Bavarian Alps.
“How are you? “(How are you), launched Boris Johnson. “I am fine” (I’m fine), replied Emmanuel Macron, dropping his jacket to sit next to him.
The two leaders are facing complicated political situations, the French president having just lost an absolute majority in the National Assembly and Boris Johnson being weakened by a series of scandals.
On the French side, the desire to “revitalize” the relationship is there after the period of glaciation which followed the submarine crisis in September.
Camberra had then canceled a mega-contract for submarines with France in favor of a strategic partnership with the United States and Great Britain, which had been experienced as a stab in the back in Paris.
The tone has also risen sharply in recent months between France and Great Britain on the rights granted to fishermen in British waters following Brexit. And it remains lively between London and the Twenty-Seven on the post-Brexit status of Northern Ireland.
“Since then, there has been the war in Ukraine,” they stress in Paris, pointing out the need to coordinate in the response to Russia.
” Fatigue ”
On Ukraine specifically, dissension continues to shine through as London pleads for accelerated military support for Ukraine and suspects Paris of favoring a negotiated solution to end the war as quickly as possible.
Boris Johnson also warned during the interview against the temptation of a negotiated solution “now”, according to Downing Street.
“The prime minister stressed that any attempt to settle the conflict now would only cause lasting instability and give Putin the right to manipulate sovereign countries and international markets in perpetuity,” a UK government spokesman said.
Unlike Emmanuel Macron, Boris Johnson has refused any dialogue with Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom he has called a “dictator”, since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine at the end of February.
These comments were “certainly not aimed at (Emmanuel) Macron” in particular, however, the spokesperson for the conservative leader stressed.
London also fears that Western opinions will grow weary as the war takes hold and its effects are felt on the price of petrol at the pump or foodstuffs.
“There is going to be, realistically, a certain fatigue within the populations and the political classes”, worried Boris Johnson in the British press, calling, like Joe Biden, Westerners to remain united.
Emmanuel Macron also sparked controversy by repeatedly warning against the temptation to “humiliate” Russia once the war was over, a warning that was aimed above all at London and Washington.
“A lot of enthusiasm”
“That’s how escalations are done,” he reiterated in a France 2 documentary, lamenting a little “music that continues to be there, more Anglo-Saxon, consisting of saying we ‘must annihilate the Russia, to weaken it permanently”.
The French presidency for its part refutes any divergence with London and underlines the will to work “collectively to try to support Ukraine as much as possible”.
France also prefers to see the positive signal sent, according to it, by Boris Johnson on the French project for a European Political Community (EPC), which would make it possible to “reengage” the United Kingdom in Europe after Brexit.
Emmanuel Macron felt “a lot of enthusiasm” from Mr. Johnson, noted the French presidency.
According to the Élysée, a first meeting of the CPE at the level of Heads of State and Government would take place in the second half of 2022 under the Czech Presidency of the EU.
“Of course we are ready to discuss it with the president and our EU colleagues if they provide us with more details,” reacted the spokesperson for Boris Johnson.