French President Emmanuel Macron (right) welcomes British Prime Minister Keir Starmer ahead of their meeting at the Elysee Palace in Paris on August 29, 2024. | Photo credit: AP
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer was warmly welcomed by French leader Emmanuel Macron in Paris on Thursday (August 29, 2024), as the new centre-left British government seeks to reboot post-Brexit ties with Europe.
Paris is the second leg of Mr Starmer’s visit to major EU capitals, after the prime minister visited Berlin to announce the start of treaty talks with Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
Mr Macron walked forward to meet Mr Starmer and hugged him, patted the newly elected leader on the back and shook his hand.
The French President usually waits with the uniformed Republican Guard at the top of the stairs in the courtyard of the Presidential Palace when welcoming visitors.
Both of them have a lot to discuss.
Like Germany, France is a major security partner of Britain – Paris and London hold permanent seats on the United Nations Security Council and are Western Europe’s only nuclear-armed powers.
Both countries provide strong support to Ukraine in its fight against Russian aggression from 2022.
An even more worrying issue is that migrants cross the Channel to reach Britain by boat, something the security forces of both countries have been cooperating to stop for years.
In a statement issued before his visit to France, Mr Starmer had first raised this issue along with promoting economic growth.
Migrant arrivals to Britain in the first six months of the year reached a record high, rising 18 per cent year-on-year to 13,500, according to London.
Since the beginning of the year, 25 people have died on dangerously overcrowded planes, twice as many deaths as will occur in the whole of 2023.
Reaching a new level of cooperation with the EU may be more difficult than the treaty Starmer hopes to have with Germany by the end of the year.
He has made a classic choice of the EU’s traditional Franco-German power couple, with Mr Scholz as head of the EU and Mr Macron as negotiators.
But both are in a vulnerable position, which could limit their influence on cross-channel dealmaking.
Mr. Scholz leads a shaky three-party coalition that faces crushing defeats in three regional elections next month and is unlikely to survive national elections next year.
Mr Macron has struggled to name a candidate for prime minister after a snap election in July left parliament hopelessly divided – a stark contrast to Mr Starmer’s unassailable majority.