London August 26, : Liz Truss, one of two candidates for the next UK Prime Minister has been accused of the risk of causing a deterioration in diplomatic relations with France after she declared that she believed that the “jury’s out” on the French president Emmanuel Macron.Truss, the current Foreign Secretary, revealed to Conservative Party members at a gathering of the party’s leadership in Norwich on Thursday she was unsure the extent to which her French colleague in Paris was “friend or foe” as reported by the DPA news agency.
A variety of problems have affected the UK and France in the past few months including the crossing of boats in the Channel and chaos in travel around Dover Truss, that Truss blamed on the lack of staffing by French authorities.
The two Truss as well as her opponent Rishi Sunak were posed an array of rapid-fire questions during the Norwich hustings.
TalkTV’s Julia Hartley-Brewer, the event host was asked by Truss: “President Macron, friend or foe?”
“The jury is out,” she responded to cheers of applause.”But should I become the Prime Minister, I’d be judging him on his actions not on words.”
Sunak had swiftly replied “friend” when asked the same question.
In the meantime, the opposition Labour warned that the statement that could be interpreted as a risk of causing tensions with France and France, displayed an “terrible and alarming incompetence of judgement”.
Former Conservative minister Gavin Barwell also questioned the statement in a tweet: “You would have thought the Foreign Secretary knew that we are in an alliance in the military with France.”
The remarks come following Truss removed from the UK from the idea of an idea of joining of the larger European political community after an encounter with Boris Johnson and the French president in June.
The Elysee Palace insisted that Johnson had expressed interest in the idea of having states that are not EU members like the UK in the mix.
Truss claimed that the UK was ever in agreement with this kind of proposal.
In July, she said delays to the travel plans of holidaymakers in the vicinity of Dover were the responsibility of French authorities, and were “entirely preventable”.
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