A couple of months ago, many French people would have struggled to identify Britain’s prime minister.
Sir Keir Starmer had made little impact on public opinion on the other side of the Channel, where those able to remember his name tended to view him as a pale and uncharismatic copy of Tony Blair. Le Monde said he was seen as “soft and indecisive”.
Today, Starmer’s image is very different. The prime minister is being praised in France and Germany for what observers say is his skilful handling of the Ukrainian crisis since President Trump’s election and his rapprochement with the EU.
Sébastien Maillard, special adviser at the Jacques Delors Institute in Paris, said: “I think many people are discovering [Starmer’s] name now. They can place him on the international stage.”
On some parts of the Continent, the prime minister is being described as the pivotal figure in European attempts to respond to the Trump maelstrom. The French would not go so far — the central figure being President Macron, in their eyes — but they do concede that Starmer is playing his hand well in what they are calling a double act with their president.
Michel Duclos, a former French diplomat who is a special adviser on geopolitics and diplomacy at the Montaigne Institute in Paris, told the Sud Ouest newspaper: “He is staying in the traditional British diplomatic channel by positioning his country as a bridge between the US and Europe but you can see that day after day, it is getting closer to Europe and moving away from the American pillar. He has proved himself on the international scene and shown skill in Washington.”
Duclos said Starmer had demonstrated his determination to play a “key role in the setting-up of a European coalition” to support Ukraine. “This crisis is clearly an opportunity for the British to regain a foothold in Europe,” he added.
Maillard agreed. “When Britain has to choose between Europe and America, it seems that it is choosing to stand with Europe,” he said, adding that the prime minister’s stance was going down well in France nine years after a Brexit referendum that left the country baffled.
“It’s amazing how people — not just decision-makers but ordinary people as well — are welcoming this. We all know that [Britain and France] are like-minded countries.”
He said a French journalist had recently asked him whether the UK was about to rejoin the EU, given Starmer’s newfound camaraderie with Macron and other European leaders. Maillard put the reporter straight, but said the question underlined French hopes for a better relationship with the UK.
A poll by the More in Common foundation, published this week, highlighted the point. It found that 71 per cent of French people and 62 per cent of Germans viewed Britain as an ally. France, in turn, was described as an ally by 70 per cent of Britons, and Germany by 67 per cent. Less than half of Britons — and only a quarter of French and Germans — said the US was an ally.
Maillard said both Macron and Starmer had realised that they needed each other amid fears that the US was planning to leave Europe in the lurch. “I wonder if Starmer could have done all this on his own without Macron and vice versa,” he said. “They are both playing it smartly, sometimes with different tone and style but going in the same direction.”
Maillard said French diplomats were equally enthused by what Radio France, the state broadcaster, is calling Starmer’s “European flirt”.
But he cautioned that Britain should not get carried away, saying that however positive Starmer’s image in Europe, France was unlikely to give ground on contentious issues such as migration and fishing rights.
In Germany, where Friedrich Merz, the probable future chancellor, is struggling to scrape together a majority to create fiscal headroom for security spending, the Rheinische Post, the regional daily based in Düsseldorf, labelled Starmer “Europe’s new key figure”. It praised the prime minister as an “apt mediator in transatlantic relations”.
The newspaper suggested that Starmer’s personal relationship with Trump and Britain’s long friendship with the US were assets in the present situation. “It is indeed ironic that Brexit is bringing the country closer to Europe again, not least because it gives the UK a special status,” it wrote.
The view from Italy is less enthusiastic, however. Giorgia Meloni, the populist prime minister, opposes Franco-British plans to deploy European peacekeepers to Ukraine and is undecided about participating in Starmer’s summit on Saturday, which is likely to discuss the matter.
“It’s not yet decided,” a government source told The Times on Wednesday when asked about Meloni’s participation in the meeting.
Meloni has previously said that the peacekeeping plan hatched by Britain and France was “very difficult to implement”, adding: “This is why we have said we will not send Italian soldiers to Ukraine.”
On Wednesday, Roman daily Il Messaggero quoted sources close to Meloni saying: “It is clear that if the meeting has been set to decide whether to send troops to protect the frontier, Giorgia will not participate.”
