On Monday night, President Emmanuel Macron left Glasgow after attending the COP26 summit in the Scotland city. The French President attended the summit on the first day while other leaders remained to work on finalizing commitments by their countries on climate change.
The French President also missed being a part of the “family photo.” Some of the world leaders who were a part of the photo included presidents and prime ministers such as Joe Biden from the U.S., Angela Merkel from Germany, Justin Trudeau from Canada and Boris Johnson from the U.K. He also was photographed with Prince Charles with both of them smiling but he did not appear at the royal reception.
Although it was his plan to head back to Paris after the first day, his departure while other leaders were still discussing deals created some talk. However, before his departure he said that no retaliatory actions would be taken against Britain over fishing rights.
Britain and France have had a somewhat contentious relationship though the ages. After Brexit, many issues that had been fomenting came up once again to create tensions. Fishing rights was one of the major issues.
Both sides had played politics and blamed the other nation for their fishing woes. President Macron had spoken of strong retaliation against British fishermen on the Channel and the French had even detained a scallop dredger. The French government had spoken of a deadline by which action would be taken against the fishermen as well as truck drivers.
On Monday, Macron said that the French were back on the negotiating table and that discussions would take place between the European Union, France and the U.K. and that no retaliatory measures would be enforced while talks were on.
Macron also had an awkward meeting with Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Morrison had recently gone back on a deal it had struck with France for diesel and electric submarines. Instead, it went for a deal with the U.S. and the U.K. for nuclear submarines and this had also soured relationships between these nations,
