French, British Foreign Ministers warn of risks of ‘Putinisation’

France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot has met his British counterpart David Lammy for talks in London against a backdrop of what Lammy called “tough geopolitical times”.

“We’ve got very important discussions,” Lammy said.

“We’ve already had much to talk about – Ukraine, the situation in the Middle East and beyond and I look forward to continuing those discussions today.”

Lammy received Barrot at Carlton Gardens, which was the headquarters of the Free France government in exile between 1940-1944.

“More than ever in a period when the world is struck by the return of brutality, the United Kingdom and France stand side by side to defend justice, to defend international law and to be actors of peace, actors of defence, of multilateralism and actors of security,” Barrot said.

An article written by the two foreign ministers and published in both the UK’s i newspaper and France’s Le Figaro on Thursday gave some indication of the topics the pair were expected to cover in Friday’s talks.

They warned of the consequences of what they called the attempted ‘Putinisation’ of the world as the war in Ukraine spreads beyond Europe.

“Putin’s aim is to set a new precedent that upends the rules-based international system, whereby countries feel they can invade their neighbours with total impunity,” they wrote.

They criticised the “illegal and intolerable” invasion of Ukraine and accused the Russian leader of attempting to “rewrite the international order”.

Both France and the UK have been staunch supporters of Ukraine since Russia’s 2022 invasion, providing billions of euros in both military and humanitarian assistance to Kyiv.

Tensions around the Ukraine war have ramped up significantly in recent weeks, particularly after President Joe Biden gave Kyiv the greenlight to use US-supplied weapons to strike military targets deeper inside Russia.

That decision prompted an angry response from the Kremlin. But US officials claim Biden’s policy shift only came about in response to North Korea deploying thousands of troops to help Russia push Ukrainian forces out of Kursk.

In a national television address on Thursday, Putin blamed what he called “the aggressive actions of NATO countries” for Moscow testing a new intermediate-range missile in a strike on Ukraine.

Putin said Russia was conducting “combat tests” of the new ‘Oreshnik’ missile system in response to Ukrainian strikes earlier this week using US and British missiles.

The war in Gaza

Lammy and Barrot also repeated their condemnation of the 7 October Hamas incursion into Israel last year, which sparked the current war in Gaza.

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They called for an immediate ceasefire, the release of all hostages and an increase in the amount of humanitarian aid allowed into the Strip.

“We know the Palestinian issue will not go away until a two-state solution is implemented, with mutual recognition and security guarantees,” they wrote.

They both condemned Israeli attacks on UN peacekeepers based in Lebanon with four Italian soldiers working for UNIFIL injured when two exploding 122mm rockets hit the mission base in Shama, Italy’s Defence Ministry said.

Several UNIFIL posts have been hit since Israel began its ground invasion of Lebanon on 1 October, leaving some peacekeepers wounded.

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Lammy and Barrot wrote, “the UK and France stand united on the side of humanitarian law” in crises all around the world, citing the ongoing conflict between the military and the Rapid Support Forces in Sudan as an area of concern.

They were also expected to discuss priorities for the Global Clean Power Alliance, a group led by the UK and launched earlier this week at the G20 in Brazil.

The Alliance was created to ensure countries meet commitments made at the COP28 climate summit in 2023, to triple renewable energy capacity and double the global rate of energy efficiency improvements.

Member countries will work together and share expertise to aid others in building investment platforms and providing assistance to unlock clean finance. 

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The alliance’s founding members are Brazil, Australia, Barbados, Canada, Chile, Colombia, France, Germany, Morocco, Norway, Tanzania and the African Union.

The United States and the European Union have partnered with the UK on the initiative.