Paris / London (EFE) from Carlos III to France in three weeks.
Brexit, the pandemic and the incident with the sale of submarines to Australia kept Paris and London apart for years, so that the last prime minister to hold a summit with Macron was Theresa May in 2018.
The French president and the new British prime minister now aspire to overcome that cold phase and stage a new time, which they will formalize with a joint declaration and with the state trip that Carlos III will make on March 27, the first of monarch since his accession to the throne on September 8.
Sunak, sources from the Élysée emphasize, has changed the critical tone towards France that his predecessors held in office, which opens up the opportunity to relaunch a “stagnant” relationship.
The British Prime Minister will attend the meeting with Macron accompanied by the heads of Foreign Affairs, Interior, Defense, Economy, Environment, Energy and Transport.
Paris believes that, in terms of defense, a “difficult phase” has been overcome and that the war in Ukraine or the tension with Iran require increasing collaboration between the two main military powers in Europe.
The boats, key for Sunak
Immigration will be another important issue, after Sunak brought his new bill to Parliament to prevent arrivals by boats, which Paris believes will have no influence on the relationship between the two countries or on the situation in the Canal de the stain.
Precisely the increase in maritime patrols is perceived from London as the highlight of the summit, marked by Sunak’s promise to “end the boats” before the British legislative elections next year.
In presenting his plan on Tuesday, the British prime minister boasted of “having reached the largest agreement on small boats with France” – last November – and noted that patrols on French beaches have increased “by 40%” since then.
However, according to an official British source, it is not expected that Sunak and Macron will discuss an agreement so that the United Kingdom can return intercepted immigrants from that country to France.
But the strengthening of surveillance in the Canal does materialize and the creation of a multi-annual framework to be able to organize long-term cooperation.
australian submarines
The summit will serve to sign several business agreements, in sectors such as energy, in which France hopes to obtain the support of London to recognize nuclear energy as a lever to fight against polluting gas emissions.
The meeting will not serve, however, to iron out the rough edges caused in September 2021 by what is known as the Australian submarine conflict, which created great sting in France when Canberra annulled the contract it had with Paris for the sale of conventional submersibles and replace them with other nuclear-powered ones manufactured by the United States and the United Kingdom.
“We do not hide what we think and they do not ignore it”, they indicated in the Élysée that, however, they do not want to give much importance to this difference and prefer to emphasize that greater military cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region will also come out of the summit, where both Countries have armed forces.