Relations review

Ian Bond, director of foreign policy at the Centre for European Reform think-tank, said the UK will keep a watchful eye on whether France tries to block reforms to NATO that London considers a priority, such as standing up to China in the Indo-Pacific, boosting cyber security capabilities and investing more on defense R&D.

“Those are all things where my understanding is that France is quite reluctant to move forward,” he said. “The French take a very traditional view of NATO in a way: NATO is about dealing with territorial defense and European contingencies. The British take a more expansive approach: that NATO is a very effective alliance and the interests of NATO member states are not geographically confined to the North Atlantic Area.”