Angela Merkel telephoned the Prime Minister yesterday morning and the German foreign minister will visit London on Monday, amid growing European disquiet over the behaviour of senior French figures in recent days.
François Fillon, the French prime minister, rang Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, from Brazil in an attempt to stem the growing rift between France and Britain, which he himself helped trigger earlier this week.
It came as Fitch, the American ratings agency, concluded that a "comprehensive solution" to the eurozone crisis was "technically and politically beyond reach" and warned that France could lose its AAA rating next year. Earlier, the French finance minister, François Baroin, stepped up the apparently coordinated attacks on the British economy. He said in a radio interview: "The economic situation in Britain today is very worrying, and you'd rather be French than British in economic terms."
His comments followed those of Christian Noyer, the head of the Bank of France, who said that Britain's credit rating should be cut before that of France as this country had "as much debt, more inflation, less growth than us".
On Thursday, Mr Fillon said: "When I look at our British friends, who are even more indebted than us and carrying a bigger deficit, what I see is that the ratings agencies so far don't seem to have noticed." Jean–Pierre Jouyet, the head of the French financial regulator, said that the Right–wing of British politics was "the world's stupidest".
The remarks broke a long–standing diplomatic precedent that allies did not publicly criticise one another's economic situation. Read on and comment » | Robert Winnett, Political Editor | Friday, December 16, 2011
