PARIS (Reuters) -French President Emmanuel Macron has invited Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to France on March 10 in order to hold a bilateral summit, the Elysee said on Wednesday, as the two countries seek to revive their ties after recent tensions.
“It will be an opportunity for the two leaders to deepen cooperation … in a range of areas, including security, climate and energy, the economy, migration, youth and foreign policy”, the French presidency said in a statement sent to Reuters.
Relations between France and Britain have come under stress in recent years, in particular since Britain left the European Union in early 2020. The countries have often traded blame for an array of problems, including fishing disputes and the failure to stem a flow of clandestine migrants across the English Channel.
Macron and Sunak had already held talks in November on the sidelines of the COP27 climate change summit in Egypt.
At the time, the two leaders had pledged ‘ambitious co-operation’ in the field of nuclear energy to cope with the impact on energy supplies of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and better co-ordination on migration.
(Reporting by Elizabeth Pineau;Writing by Tassilo Hummel;Editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta)
