The Connexion caught up with British Ambassador Dame Menna Rawlings before Christmas to look back at 2024 and forward to 2025.
Dame Menna: It has been an extraordinary year for UK-France relations and we are coming to the end feeling very positive about a stronger UK-France partnership.
There have been a number of fantastic anniversaries: the 120th of the Entente Cordiale, with an incredible moment around the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace and the Elysée Palace, with soldiers from each other’s countries.
The chief of MI6, Sir Richard Moore, came to Paris to deliver the first-ever Entente Cordiale lecture with his French counterpart, talking about what are normally secret aspects of our partnership around intelligence and security.
And last week I was with the Queen and Brigitte Macron for the first-ever Entente Littéraire prize-giving*, which was absolutely brilliant.
We also had the D-Day 80th anniversary in Normandy and we were very pleased that the prime minister, Keir Starmer, participated in this year’s Armistice Day ceremony at the Arc de Triomphe, which has not happened since 1944.
Of course, we participated in other big moments for France: the Olympics and Paralympics, the reopening of Notre-Dame at which Prince William represented the King, and we hosted him here at the Residence – all those things keep moving the relationship forward in a really positive way.
In 2025 there will be a UK-France summit and we are working with our new government in the UK on a wider European reset, so there will be more coming in terms of building up work on challenges we face around irregular migration and national security, and looking at what more we can do to ease travel and economic activity between our countries.
Can you expand on what might be achieved in, for example, youth mobility, or generally in making things easier for people moving across the Channel or visiting?
First of all we’re really pleased there are some things we can do bilaterally, and the deal we struck at the last summit in 2023 for school groups to come to the UK without needing passports, shows that can really help.
The bigger questions about mobility are more for the UK-EU side; on the UK side it is not something we are planning at the moment, but we are entering deeper negotiations with the EU in the coming months so we will see how that goes.
But the key thing from my government’s point of view is that there is not going to be a return to British membership of the single market or customs union or freedom of movement.
But we think there are things we can do, and look forward to talking to France and other countries in a pragmatic spirit.
Read more: Residency rights and border changes: What's new in France in 2025
Have you news on possible visa simplifications?
One thing I’d like to mention is visas for the UK [eg. for French people] for which we now use a new contractor, VFS Global [instead of TLSContact] and I hope that it will improve service, with simpler and quicker submission of biometric data and applications.
With regard to the process for people coming to France, we pro-actively monitor issues that British nationals are worried about and we raise them with the French authorities [the embassy can be contacted here].
I would also like to remind people about the UK’s move to ETA, a new streamlined digital immigration system [similar to the EU’s planned Etias, it will involve online pre-approval to visit for non-UK nationals].
People from European countries can apply from March 5 and you will need an ETA to travel from April 2, so it is important people start thinking about that.
It’s good value for money, you pay £10 and that gives you multiple trips over two years, or until your passport runs out. It will be simple and it will be on an app.
We are also pleased the EES has been delayed, which gives more time to prepare.
The commission is shifting towards a staggered approach to roll-out [see pages 1 and 3].
We’d like to see a few more things before roll-out, particularly regarding the availability of the app, but we are in constant contact with our French counterparts and EU colleagues, and it is moving in the right direction.
We were worried about big-bang disruption risks under the original timetable, so we are very relieved and we can all enjoy our Christmases.
Read more: Cars and driving: What's new in France in 2025
We’ve been covering the French inheritance law issue, which is a concern for many readers. Can you comment?
I’ve seen the concerns in recent articles. Our position is that people need to talk to specialist lawyers and we cannot give advice. It is for France to make their laws, though we are aware of it.
Thank you, is there anything you would like to add?
Dame Menna: I’d like to wish a merry Christmas, happy New Year and happy holidays to you and all your readers, and to say thank you for what you do to keep people informed.
The Connexion places emphasis on supporting communities and making life easier for people, and I admire that and am grateful for it.
Next year is also the 300th anniversary of our Residence building in Paris, the Hôtel de Charost, so we will be looking forward to events around that.
That will be another landmark we can celebrate in the history of UK-French relations.
It is a real British-French house, originally owned by Napoleon’s sister before being sold to the British government when the Duke of Wellington was ambassador in 1814. It has lived through all the ups and downs of the last three centuries and we are very proud of it.
We recently hosted US President-elect Trump here when he came for a meeting with Prince William, which I think was a first, and I think he appreciated its beauty as much as we do.
* The Entente Littéraire prize, for a novel for teenagers or young adults, was awarded to Lucie Bryon for her graphic novel Voleuse/Thieves and Manon Steffan Ros for Le Livre bleu de Nebo/The Blue Book of Nebo, as well as Lise Garond for the French translation of this.
