German Chancellor Olaf Scholz was in Paris on Wednesday for lunch and talks with President Emmanuel Macron to a backdrop of increasingly strained relations between their two governments on a variety of issues.
According to British government sources cited in the media, diplomatic tensions are running high between London and Paris, stalling moves to hold a joint summit.
French President Emmanuel Macron has held a summit in Pau, south-west France, with leaders of five West African states engaged alongside France in fighting jihadist forces in the Sahel when he announced a further 220 French troops would be sent to the region to join their 4,500 colleagues already on the ground and the creation of a joint command structure with regional states.
France and Germany have reacted strongly at a decision by US President Donald Trump to withdraw his support for the concluding joint statement issued by the Group of Seven summit in Canada of leading world economic powers, with a French presidential source calling it an act of 'incoherence and inconsistency' and the German foreign minister saying trust had been 'lost'.
French President Emmanuel Macron met with British Prime Minister Theresa May at the Sandhurst military academy on Thursday on his first official visit to the UK, when the two agreed increased British funding of border security measures at Calais, and increased security and defence cooperation, including British helicopter missions in Mali and French participation in reinforcing Estonia's frontier with Russia.
British prime Minister Theresa May meets with French President Emmanuel Macron in their first joint summit meeting at the Royal Military Academy of Sandhurst in Berkshire on Thursday, when continuing Brexit negotiations, defence cooperation and the migrant crisis in Calais will top the agenda.
