By Ahmet Gurhan Kartal
LONDON (AA) – The U.K. government on Thursday appeared to row back on recent controversial comments made by Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson likening French President Francois Hollande to a WWII camp guard.
Speaking about Brexit, Johnson had said: “If Mr. Hollande wants to administer punishment beatings to anybody who seeks to escape [the EU], in the manner of some World War II movie, I don’t think that is the way forward, and it’s not in the interests of our friends and partners.”
However, a U.K. government spokesperson on Thursday distanced the state from the comments which provoked a stream of condemnation from British and European politicians:
“He [Boris Johnson] was making a point. He was in no way suggesting that anyone was a Nazi,” the spokesperson said during a briefing.
“He was making a theatrical comparison to some of those evocative WW2 movies,” she added.
Johnson made the remark during a visit to India, where he was asked a question regarding French comments that Britain should not expect a better trading relationship with Europe once the U.K. left the EU.
