Downing Street today insisted Boris Johnson and Emmanuel Macron have not fallen out despite the pair not having held a call since the French President’s re-election last month.
Mr Macron secured five more years in the Elysee Palace on 24th April when he defeated rival Marine Le Pen.
But, in the nine days since, the French President has not picked up the phone to the Prime Minister, in what has been branded as ‘Le Snub’.
Mr Macron’s telephone silence has not extended to all world leaders, with the French President due to have spoken to Russia’s Vladimir Putin this morning.
The French and Russian leaders spoke regularly in the early weeks following Mr Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, but – prior to today – they last talked on 29th March.
Today’s call was instigated by Mr Macron and follows a call he held with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday, the Elysee Palace said.
In London, Number 10 batted away suggestions that Mr Johnson might be concerned he is below Mr Putin in the pecking order when it comes to contact with the French President.
‘We speak regularly to our French counterparts, the PM has spoken to President Macron in recent weeks and months and they will continue to do so,’ Mr Johnson’s official spokesman said.
Asked why the PM and French President had not spoken since the latter’s election victory, the spokesman added: ‘Macron was obviously re-elected so it’s a slightly different situation to having a new world leader.
‘But I’m sure they will speak in due course.’
Pressed on whether Mr Johnson and Mr Macron had had a fight, the spokesman replied: ‘No. Timings for leaders calls can move around.
‘They will speak in due course and we will confirm when they have done.’
Late last year, Mr Macron was reported to have referred to Mr Johnson as a ‘clown’ in a private conversation.
The pair have also previously clashed over a number of Brexit issues – such as arrangements for Northern Ireland and fishing rights – as well as Channel migrant crossings.
There had been speculation that Mr Macron’s re-election would calm tensions between London and Paris, with the French President no longer having to campaign to extend his term in office.
Number 10 today stressed the UK and France ‘maintain a strong relationship’, as shown by their joint action against Mr Putin over Ukraine.
And Downing Street said that Government ministers ‘remain in close contact’ with both French and EU counterparts on migration issues.
However, there were fresh tensions today over UK-French efforts to stem the number of illegal Channel crossings as Number 10 dismissed a French politician’s claim they were a waste of money.
Pierre-Henri Dumont, the MP for Calais, claimed his country should end its joint work with Britain on the issue because it wastes millions of pounds of UK taxpayers’ cash.
He said that continuing with ongoing operations would just make French and British voters ‘angry and unhappy’ because ‘migrants will continue to cross’.
Mr Dumont questioned the point of cooperation between the two countries. And he suggested the millions of pounds being given to France was not enough, adding: ‘We are not your b***h.’
Last year, the UK agreed to pay France £54million to help expand the country’s efforts to stem the number of small boats crossing the Channel.
This included a doubling of the number of police patrolling French beaches. The agreement came on top of a £28million struck a year earlier.
Despite a recent 11-day pause in small boat crossings across the Channel, which has been attributed to rough weather, more than 250 people were reported to have made the perilous journey on Sunday.
In total, more than 7,000 migrants are estimated to have arrived in the UK after crossing the Channel this year so far.
An analysis of government figures found this is more than three times the number recorded for the same period in 2021 (2,390), and more than seven times the amount recorded at this point in 2020 (1,006).
In an interview with The Times, Mr Dumont suggested that no amount of money would stop the Channel crossings.
‘I strongly believe that we need to exit the relationship that we have right now with the UK, which is basically the UK is giving us money to do the job, because it makes both sides of the Channel angry,’ he said.
‘The UK taxpayer because they say “we’re giving money to the French, what are they doing, we still have crossings”.
‘But we are not your b***h. We know that the migrants will continue to cross and at the end it will make only people on both sides of the Channel angry and unhappy because we think you’re not giving enough money and you think you are giving us enough money and you don’t see the results.
‘So what is the point here?’
Home Secretary Priti Patel has attemped a fresh crackdown on Channel crossings with a new £120million deal to send migrants arriving illegally in the UK on a one-way flight to Rwanda.
But Mr Dumont claimed the agreement with Kigali would only make people-smuggling gangs richer and lead to migrants attempting riskier crossings with the prospect of more drownings.
‘With the Rwanda solution, it will make the smugglers richer and it will be that the trip will be more dangerous because the only solution for them not to be deported to Rwanda is not to be caught because they can live in the UK quietly without getting in trouble because there is no ID checks on the streets,’ he told the newspaper.
He added that because migrants now face the risk of deportation to Rwanda, they will ‘not call the British authorities, I am afraid, once they enter the British waters, they will go without calling them, with more and more risks of drowning’.
Mr Dumont insisted the UK should open a ‘legal route’ for eligible migrants to come to Britain by allowing applications on the Continent, before they reach British shores.
He suggested Britain could be included in European Union efforts to open new camps on Greek islands, despite no longer being a member of the bloc.
But the French politician stressed there would be no return to the EU’s Dublin arrangements, under which failed asylum seekers reaching the UK could previously be returned to the EU country they arrived from.
He said: ‘There will be no deal for a simple reason, because the UK has decided to exit the EU. When you are exiting the EU you are exiting the Dublin agreement.’
Responding to Mr Dumont’s comments about joint UK-French efforts to stem Channel crossings being a waste of British taxpayers’ cash, the PM’s official spokesman said: ‘You won’t be surprised to hear we disagree with that.
‘That support so far has prevented 23,000 migrant attempts in 2021, so that is a valuable investment in preventing people from making a dangerous crossing that we know puts lives at risk.’