PM meeting with President Hollande: 22 September 2015
The Prime Minister, David Cameron, welcomed French President Francois Hollande to Chequers for discussions.
A Downing Street spokesperson said :
The Prime Minister has welcomed President Hollande to Chequers on his first visit there.
Before dinner, they held detailed discussions for over an hour on the migration crisis, the situation in Syria and climate change.
On migration, they agreed that we must use tomorrow’s European Council to focus on a more comprehensive approach, in particular increasing assistance for the countries neighbouring Syria to enable more refugees to stay there. They also agreed that EU countries should do more to return migrants who don’t have a genuine claim for asylum to their countries of origin.
They discussed how a big part of the answer to the refugee crisis must be a solution to the situation in Syria and they agreed on the need to inject momentum into the political process there. They expressed their shared concern about the threat that ISIL poses to our national security and agreed that we should keep working together as part of the coalition to defeat ISIL and to counter this terrorist threat.
Finally, the Prime Minister underlined the UK support for French efforts to secure a global climate deal in Paris later this year. They both agreed to use talks at the UN General Assembly meeting next week to build further support for a deal, including on financial contributions.
Talks will continue over dinner, with the focus on EU reform and the UK renegotiation.