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Macron to meet UK opposition chief Starmer

French President Emmanuel Macron will host UK Labour party chief Keir Starmer in Paris next week, his office said on Wednesday, in a sign of shifting winds ahead of a likely election next year.

Published: 13 September 2023 18:11 CEST

Macron to meet UK opposition chief Starmer

French president Emmanuel Macron (Photo by Ludovic MARIN / AFP)

Starmer’s centre-left party looks like the favourite to become the biggest in the UK parliament at the vote as the Conservative government under Prime Minister Rishi Sunak flounders.

Macron “will meet Mr Keir Starmer on Tuesday September 19 (…) as part of his dialogue with European political actors,” his Elysee Palace office said, confirming reports in British media.

The Labour leader’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Starmer last week reshuffled his top team in what many observers saw as preparation for an election campaign, and has recently made promises not to raise taxes if he secures power.

Rishi Sunak, who only became Conservative prime minister last October, must call an election by the end of January 2025.

The Tory leader is expected to wait for as long as possible in the hope that the country’s grim economic picture will improve, after months of record inflation and the worst cost-of-living crisis in a generation.

For now, Labour consistently beats the Conservatives by some distance in polls of voting intentions.

Macron’s office said on Wednesday that he had spoken with Sunak “on the fringes of the G20 summit” in India at the weekend.

The French head of state will also welcome Britain’s King Charles III later this month on a state visit — delayed earlier this year as France was wracked by fierce protests against Macron’s pension reforms.

Britain is a key diplomatic partner for France, with the two nuclear-armed NATO members both holding permanent seats on the UN Security Council and engaging in close military cooperation.

But the two often scuffle over bilateral issues, including migrants crossing into the UK on small boats — arrivals Sunak has vowed to cut off — and fishing rights.

The relationship grew more tense during Britain’s years-long departure from the European Union, which coincided with Macron’s vocally pro-EU first term.

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Azerbaijan vehemently rejects the accusation it bears responsibility for the riots that have led to the deaths of five people and rattled the Paris government.

But it is just the latest in a litany of tensions between Paris and Baku and not the first time France has accused Azerbaijan of being behind an alleged disinformation campaign.

The riots in New Caledonia, a French territory lying between Australia and Fiji, were sparked by moves to agree a new voting law that supporters of independence from France say discriminates against the indigenous Kanak population.

Paris points to the sudden emergence of Azerbaijani flags alongside Kanak symbols in the protests, while a group linked to the Baku authorities is openly backing separatists while condemning Paris.

“This isn’t a fantasy. It’s a reality,” interior minister Gérald Darmanin told television channel France 2 when asked if Azerbaijan, China and Russia were interfering in New Caledonia.

“I regret that some of the Caledonian pro-independence leaders have made a deal with Azerbaijan. It’s indisputable,” he alleged.

But he added: “Even if there are attempts at interference… France is sovereign on its own territory, and so much the better”.

“We completely reject the baseless accusations,” Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry spokesman Ayhan Hajizadeh said.

“We refute any connection between the leaders of the struggle for freedom in Caledonia and Azerbaijan.”

In images widely shared on social media, a reportage broadcast Wednesday on the French channel TF1 showed some pro-independence supporters wearing T-shirts adorned with the Azerbaijani flag.

Tensions between Paris and Baku have grown in the wake of the 2020 war and 2023 lightning offensive that Azerbaijan waged to regain control of its breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region from ethnic Armenian separatists.

France is a traditional ally of Christian Armenia, Azerbaijan’s neighbour and historic rival, and is also home to a large Armenian diaspora.

Darmanin said Azerbaijan – led since 2003 by President Ilham Aliyev, who succeeded his father Heydar – was a “dictatorship”.

On Wednesday, the Paris government also banned social network TikTok from operating in New Caledonia.

Tiktok, whose parent company is Chinese, has been widely used by protesters. Critics fear it is being employed to spread disinformation coming from foreign countries.

Azerbaijan invited separatists from the French territories of Martinique, French Guiana, New Caledonia and French Polynesia to Baku for a conference in July 2023.

The meeting saw the creation of the “Baku Initiative Group”, whose stated aim is to support “French liberation and anti-colonialist movements”.

The group published a statement this week condemning the French parliament’s proposed change to New Caledonia’s constitution, which would allow outsiders who moved to the territory at least 10 years ago the right to vote in its elections.

Pro-independence forces say that would dilute the vote of Kanaks, who make up about 40 percent of the population.

“We stand in solidarity with our Kanak friends and support their fair struggle,” the Baku Initiative Group said.

Raphael Glucksmann, the lawmaker heading the list for the French Socialists in June’s European Parliament elections, told Public Senat television that Azerbaijan had made “attempts to interfere… for months”.

He said the underlying problem behind the unrest was a domestic dispute over election reform, not agitation fomented by “foreign actors”.

But he accused Azerbaijan of “seizing on internal problems.”

A French government source, who asked not to be named, said pro-Azerbaijani social media accounts had on Wednesday posted an edited montage purporting to show two white police officers with rifles aimed at dead Kanaks.

“It’s a pretty massive campaign, with around 4,000 posts generated by (these) accounts,” the source told AFP.

“They are reusing techniques already used during a previous smear campaign called Olympia.”

In November, France had already accused actors linked to Azerbaijan of carrying out a disinformation campaign aimed at damaging its reputation over its ability to host the Olympic Games in Paris. Baku also rejected these accusations.