Is Emmanuel Macron “friend or foe”? The big favorite to succeed Boris Johnson as Britain’s prime minister, Liz Truss, avoided giving a clear answer, saying she would judge the French president “by his actions”.
Truss, who spoke on Thursday night at a Conservative Party event in Norwich, England, however made it clear that she preferred French nuclear expertise to Chinese.
The current head of British diplomacy aspires to soon settle in number 10 Downing Street, succeeding Boris Johnson who resigned last July.
To achieve this, Truss needs to secure the support of a majority of the roughly 200,000 members of Britain’s Conservative Party. The election process to elect the new Tory leader is underway and its result will be known on September 5.
Liz Truss’s opponent in the final round of voting is former finance minister Rishi Sunak, who was also present on Thursday night in Norwich, even if the two “fighters” did not debate face-to-face.
Sunak, who trails Tras by 30 percentage points in the latest polls, didn’t hesitate when the event’s hostess asked him about Macron: “Friend,” he answered flatly.
Instead, when Truss was asked “Macron, friend or foe?”, she chose to throw the ball on the podium. “The jury’s still out,” he replied, drawing laughter from the room. “If I become prime minister, I will judge him by his actions not his words,” she added, without further explaining the reasons for her cautious stance.
France and Britain have quite a few differences, especially when it comes to the post-Brexit era, be it fisheries or the Northern Ireland Protocol.
The two countries, NATO allies, also had different approaches to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Boris Johnson took a very hard line against Russian President Vladimir Putin, while Emmanuel Macron defended the need to maintain dialogue with the Kremlin.
Relations between Paris and London came to the fore again when the debate turned to Britain’s energy independence, where prices are soaring due to rising gas prices.
Britain must build new nuclear power stations, argued Liz Truss, who said that if she had to choose between French and Chinese nuclear expertise, she would trust France.
Source: RES-MPE
Source: Capital
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