The former British prime minister fiercely attacked the French president at the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, his former communications director recalled in a podcast.
Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson lashed out at French President Emmanuel Macron at the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, accusing him of being a “Putin licker,” his former communications director said on Thursday.
In early March 2022, when tens of thousands of Ukrainians fled their country ahead of the February 24 Russian invasion, British media and several European countries criticized the small number of refugees admitted to the UK.
“Macron went a step further by criticizing Boris very directly and his comments made the front page of the Guardian, I think, on a Friday,” Guto Harri, the former prime minister’s former communications director, recalled in a new episode of his podcast. “Unprecedented” went online this Thursday.
“He’s a freak”
During a meeting with his advisors, “he went on a vicious attack on Emmanuel Macron, insulting him with a word that started with a C (obvious allusion to ‘asshole’, ed.), and said, he is a psychopath, c is Putin’s toady,” he says.
“We have to take off our gloves”, “we have to rage against the ‘frogs'” (frogs – derogatory nickname for the French), Boris Johnson would have said, according to this adviser.
The UK and its leaders, an early supporter of Kiev in the conflict with Russia, were already skeptical of French President’s attempts to persuade Russian President Vladimir Putin not to invade Ukraine.
Reconciliation at a G7 summit
The French President’s visit to Moscow a few weeks before the conflict began had “sickened” Boris Johnson, according to Guto Harri. However, says this adviser, the two leaders would then have reconciled.
“They drank a whiskey together at a G7 summit (…) and gave each other ‘my friend’, ‘enchanted Emmanuel’”, and Boris Johnson invited Macron to London “so that we could show the world that our ‘Bromance’ is ‘alive’.
A spokesman for Boris Johnson declined to comment on his former adviser’s comments on the grounds that the former Prime Minister was not involved with the podcast.
According to official figures, the UK has issued nearly 230,000 visas to Ukrainians since the war began.