Emanuel Macron, “Friend or enemy”? Favorite in the UK prime minister race, Liz Truss, declined to comment on Thursday, saying she would judge the French president “on his actions”. Liz Truss, who spoke in the evening at an election meeting of the Conservative Party in Norwich (south-east), nevertheless specified that she preferred French nuclear technology to Chinese. The one who is still head of diplomacy in her country, in a government managing current affairs, aspires to succeed at 10 Downing Street to Boris Johnson, who resigned in July.
Many litigation files
For this, it must collect a majority of the votes of some 200,000 conservative activists. The election is underway and its result will be known on September 5th. She is opposed to former Economy Minister Rishi Sunak, also present Thursday evening in Norwich, even if the two candidates did not debate directly. Rishi Sunak, who according to the latest polls is 30 points behind his rival, did not hesitate when the journalist hosting the evening asked him “Macron, friend or foe?”opting for the first option.
In contrast, when Liz Truss was asked the same question, she answered “The jury is still out”making the room laugh. “If I become prime minister, I will judge him on his actions and not on his words”, she added, without further expanding on the reasons for this displayed mistrust. Many litigation files exist between France and the United Kingdom, in particular the management of post-Brexit files, whether fisheries or Northern Ireland.
The two countries, NATO allies, also had different approaches to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, with Boris Johnson taking a very hard line against Vladimir Putin while the French president defended the need to keep open dialogue with the Kremlin. The relationship between Paris and London was again invited a few minutes later in the conversation, about the energy independence of the United Kingdom, where prices are soaring under the effect of the explosion in gas prices. The country must build new nuclear power plants, argued Liz Truss, lamenting the fact that it has lost its expertise in this area. To do this, “if the choice is to depend on France or China, I will choose France”, she launched, again applauded.