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13 May 2010updated 27 Sep 2015 5:41am

Sarkozy: Cameron will end up a pro-European

“He’ll start out Eurosceptic and finish up pro-European,” says French president.

By George Eaton

One can always rely on Nicolas Sarkozy to greet the arrival of a new foreign leader with more than mere platitudes about “working together”. So here, according to Le Figaro, are his thoughts on our new Prime Minister:

He’ll start out Eurosceptic and finish up pro-European. It’s the rule. He’ll be like all the others.

One can understand why Sarkozy is so confident. After all, it was a Tory prime minister (Margaret Thatcher) who signed the Single European Act and a Tory prime minister (John Major) who agreed to the Maastricht Treaty.

But while Cameron, a consummate pragmatist, may often appear willing to abandon almost all principle for political convenience, his Euroscepticism, forged in the wake of Black Wednesday, is the one major exception.

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I expect that Cameron is likely to bear in mind Tim Montgomerie’s warning: “If Britain’s relationship with the EU is fundamentally the same after five years of Conservative government the internal divisions that ended the last Tory period in government will look like a tea party in comparison.”

If there is one subject that is almost guaranteed to bring Clegg and Cameron’s honeymoon to a juddering halt, it is Europe.

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