Boris Johnson has said he suspected France’s Emmanuel Macron of “weaponising” the small boats crisis to “punish” Brexit Britain.
Writing in his forthcoming memoir Unleashed, the former Prime Minister suggested Mr Macron discreetly allowed migrants to cross the Channel to “drive the British public nuts”.
He said that while he personally got on with the French President, Mr Macron “really meant it when he said that Brexit Britain must be punished.”
In a serialisation published by the Daily Mail, Mr Johnson wrote: “On some issues I am afraid I therefore suspected him of being a positive nuisance.
“Take the ‘small boats’ that cross the Channel to Britain from the beaches of France, risking the lives of tens of thousands of migrants.
“It seemed at least possible to me that he was weaponising the problem, Belarus-style, and discreetly allowing the migrants to come across in sufficient numbers to drive the British public nuts and undermine one of the most important facts of Brexit – that we had taken back control of our borders.”
Mr Johnson said that he and Macron were friendly, and often agreed on many major issues - but that “he would not hesitate to put his Cuban-heeled bootee into Brexit Britain.”
He also said that in June 2020 he’d chatted to Mr Macron about a possible road link between the two nations but claimed that the French leader had responded “non”.
Mr Johnson said it was as though the President was “suddenly appalled at the idea of all those rapacious Brits swarming across a bridge to his relatively underpopulated country”.
Mr Johnson, who was forced out of office in 2022 amid a series of scandals, will not be attending Conservative Party conference in Birmingham, where candidates for the party leadership will set out their stalls.
Tom Tugendhat and Kemi Badenoch will face questions today from party members in Birmingham, while former Prime Minister Liz Truss is expected at a fringe in-conversation event on the second day of the four-day gathering.
The contest to replace Rishi Sunak as leader has taken centre stage at the party's first conference since their general election defeat.
James Cleverly and Robert Jenrick, the other two candidates, will face questions on Tuesday, before all four contenders make speeches on Wednesday before the close of the conference.
The successor to Rishi Sunak will not be determined until the end of November, with Mr Sunak urging party members to focus on unity after July’s resounding election defeat.
Addressing members at a reception on Sunday evening, he warned that the Tories would face further defeats if they did not rally around whoever the party chooses as the new leader.
He said: "We must end the division, the backbiting, the squabbling.”
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