There’s little chance of Britain resuming ties with France under new Prime Minister Liz Truss, experts say, as neighbors’ geographic proximity and sometimes divergent interests make for a difficult post-Brexit relationship.

Truss played on strained connections over the channel during the Conservative Party leadership election, declaring “the jury is out” when asked if French President Emmanuel Macron was a “friend or foe”.

It was the latest in a series of barbs by British leaders in Paris that have at times angered the French.

“The UK is a friendly, strong and allied nation, independent of its leaders and sometimes in spite of their leaders,” Macron later replied.

“[Truss’]allusion to the party loyalists is that she’s going to be very tough on Europe and very tough on Macron in particular because that fits in well with the conservative base,” former British Ambassador to Paris Peter Ricketts told AFP.

Britain’s historic rival France, led by ardent pro-EU Macron since 2017, has become a prime scapegoat for post-Brexit tensions.

“Because of the close proximity and the tremendous movement of people and cargo … the Brexit irritation and anger is mostly occurring between the UK and France,” Ricketts said.

Around 55 per cent of freight wagons – around a million vehicles – leaving the UK in 2020 used the ferry or rail crossings between Dover and Calais, according to the UK government.

Meanwhile, the French government reported 12 million British visitors and Britain 3.6 million French visitors in 2019 – the last year before the coronavirus crisis.

Since 2020, restrictive coronavirus measures and changes to Brexit rules have led to border congestion, which Eurosceptic British politicians and tabloids often blame on French intransigence.

London and Paris also quarreled in 2021 over shortages of AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine.

“We can be assured that there will be sustained high levels of stress and friction at the border,” Ricketts said, highlighting a new EU pre-registration scheme called ETIAS that will start next year.

Indeed, “we could find ourselves in a full-fledged trade war with the European Union in eight months’ time if Truss abandons parts of the Brexit deal on Irish border controls, said Anand Menon, a professor of European politics at King’s College London.

But Menon argued an escalation was unlikely given the risk it could exacerbate the cost-of-living crisis.

Less crucial for the economy have been vocal rows over issues such as fishing licenses for French boats around the Channel Islands – now mostly resolved – and migrants trying to get to the UK in inflatable boats.

London has repeatedly threatened to withdraw tens of millions of euros paid to support France’s coastguards.

More than 27,000 people have attempted to cross the English Channel so far in 2022 – almost as many as in all of 2021.

Distant British and French interests can be closely aligned – for example in trade and security.

The two governments “don’t always come up with the same solutions…but they share many of the same instincts,” said Georgina Wright, program director for Europe at France’s Institut Montaigne think tank.

Since 2010, they have been linked by treaties providing for a joint expeditionary force, missile development and even nuclear testing.

French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna, herself a former ambassador to London, told RTL radio on Monday that “because of Britain’s stance on the European issue,[the relationship]is not up to the role that our two countries should be playing.” Stage.

For the time being, the British leaders are pursuing the go-it-yourself slogan “Global Britain”.

“There is absolutely no political payback for working closely with the EU,” Menon said in Foreign Policy.

Britain has sided with other European powers, including France, to bring the United States and Iran back to the deal in exchange for lifting sanctions to limit Tehran’s nuclear programme.

But while both have responded to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with severe sanctions, some in France are complaining about Britain’s bravado over arms sales, while London is suspicious of Paris’s insistence on continuing talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

And last year there was a violent clash with Paris over the Indo-Pacific when Britain forged an alliance called AUKUS with the US and Australia that resulted in Sydney canceling a lucrative contract for French submarines.

“The AUKUS affair is ‘Global Britain’ applied to Asia… It makes sense,” said Jean-Pierre Maulny of the Paris Institute for International and Strategic Relations (IRIS).

“But this logic goes against the interests of France and those of Europeans in general,” he added.

“I don’t think Liz Truss (who is going to be prime minister) will change much,” Maulny predicted, adding, “In the short term we have no hope (of improving relations).”