Once “Emmanuel”. “Rishi” on the other side. French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak performed at the Élysée this Friday, calling each other by name and making jokes about the football or rugby rivalry between France and the United Kingdom. After several years of constant friction between the two countries Paris and London, the two relatively young leaders, aged 45 (Macron) and 42 (Altar), 36th Franco-British Summit. Defense and immigration issues were discussed at a meeting held in the French capital.
“We left the European Union, but we are still part of Europe. We want to continue our policy with our neighbors and our nearest neighbor is franceSunak, at a joint press conference with Macron, with whom he shares a stable political position both at almost the same age and in the centre-right, also spoke about the fact that he is facing strong social protests in his home country. At the summit, the issues of cooperation on nuclear energy, especially the management of inflation and the energy crisis, were also discussed. It was attended by seven French ministers and their British counterparts.
Training of Ukrainian soldiers
Predictably, the war in Ukraine was one of the highlights of this meeting between the two Western European nuclear powers. Macron announced the signing of an agreement between Paris and London. training ukrainian soldiers: “Our short-term goal is to help Ukraine resist and carry out the counterattacks it wants to carry out.” “We are doing everything we can so that this conflict does not generalize,” said the French leader, who stood out last year for his commitment to keeping the channel of dialogue open with Russian President Vladimir Putin. and for less unconditional support to Kiev from Eastern European countries or the United Kingdom.
In fact, the war in Ukraine and the prominence of NATO and US hegemony in Europe contributed to this. Normalization of relations between London and major countries European Union. After the turbulent years post-Brexit, this unraveling has already been exemplified by the recently signed Northern Ireland border protocol agreement. King III. Carlos will also go to the capital of France on March 27. A visit that will take place in the same context of reconciliation.
More control in the English Channel
Besides Brexit and the submarine crisis, another issue that overshadows the ties between Paris and London is Immigration management in the English Channel. The British Government announced this Friday that it will double its economic funding to France. up to 543 million euros over the next three years, to outsource its border and strengthen French police controls (drones, a new immigration detention center…) in the Calais and Dunkerque region (northern France). “We agreed to increase our response and surveillance capabilities,” said Sunak, who was equally as stern as her predecessors Liz Truss and Boris Johnson.
The proliferation of controls and Fortification of the port of Calais (walled, barbed wire…), it’s getting harder and harder for migrants and refugees to sneak into trucks and cross this border. As a result, dangerous transitions with patera in this field: 45,000 in 2022, a figure that may rise to 85,000 this year.
Although there are different agreements between Macron and Sunak on this issue – they had already reached another agreement in the same sense in November – there is no guarantee that it will be resolved. Nor is it a situation with its main victims dead at sea (31 last year and 27 in 2021), but also the thousands of foreigners living in very dangerous conditions in makeshift camps on the outskirts of Calais and Dunkirk.