'breath of fresh air'
The French are still unhappy with Biden, but at least Boris Johnson likes him
President Biden might still be on France's bad side, but at least another western ally had some nice things to say about him.
During an interview with Savannah Guthrie of NBC's Today, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson called working with Biden "a breath of fresh air," particularly on one specific issue.
The U.S. president and U.K. prime minister are "fated to get along," Johnson told Guthrie, "but what I will say about Joe Biden and dealing with the new American president, yes, it is a breath of fresh air in the sense of [the] things on which we can really, really work together."
More specifically, "climate change — he's great on that," Johnson said.
Meanwhile, however, former French ambassador to the U.S. Gérard Araud told the New Republic that Biden is a "big disappointment all over Europe" because of his lack of European policy.
"[Former President Barack Obama] didn't care about Europe. [Former President Donald Trump] was hostile to Europe. And here you have Biden. And Biden, to be frank so far, is a big disappointment all over Europe," asserted Araud. "The administration has no European policy. ... There are a lot of issues, and we should work together. And frankly there has been no reaction from the U.S. administration," he added.
Of the controversial U.S. nuclear submarine deal with the U.K. and Australia — the object of French's scorn — Araud said he believes the "Americans had totally underestimated the seriousness of what they were doing, and that, in the eyes of the French, the partnership was seen as a "strategic defeat inflicted by the U.S. in the most devious way."
"You don't do that to an ally," Araud argued. Read more at the New Republic and Today.