PARIS
\nAfter years of public rows and even a brief naval stand-off in the Channel, Britain and France are looking to reset their relations under new UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
\nSunak and French President Emmanuel Macron met for the first time as leaders on the sidelines of the UN\u2019s COP27 climate summit in Egypt on Monday.
\n\u201cFriends,\u201d wrote Sunak over a tweeted picture of the two statesmen in an obvious reference to his short-lived predecessor Liz Truss, who said in August she was undecided on whether the French leader was a \u201cfriend or foe\u201d.
\nOn Wednesday, Macron followed up by announcing that the countries would hold a defence summit at the start of next year, ending years of minimal bilateral meetings.
\n\u201cOur partnership with the United Kingdom must also be raised to another level,\u201d the 43-year-old said during speech in the southern French naval base in Toulon.
\nThe objective was to \u201crenew the ambitions of our two countries as friends and allies,\u201d he explained.
\nMacron and Sunak, 42, have much in common at a superficial level, being of similar height and age, as well as sharing a love for slick communications and sharply tailored navy-blue suits.
\nBut the similarities run deeper: their fathers were medics, both are privately educated, and each of them had a career in banking before entering politics — Macron at Rothschild, Sunak at Goldman Sachs.
\nPolitical differences remain, with Sunak a conservative Eurosceptic free-marketeer, while Macron is fervently pro-EU and a believer in strong state intervention.
\nBut most importantly, Sunak is seen as a \u201cserious, reflective person\u201d in Paris — unlike his one-time boss Boris Johnson who stepped down as premier in September, former British ambassador to Paris Peter Ricketts said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
PARIS After years of public rows and even a brief naval stand-off in the Channel, Britain and France are looking to reset their relations under new UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. Sunak and French President Emmanuel Macron met for the first time as leaders on the sidelines of the UN\u2019s COP27 climate summit in Egypt […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":294526,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-294508","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n