Emmanuel Macron has said that he wants to sort out the ban on traffic from the UK within the next few hours, Boris Johnson said after a phone call with the French president.
Mr Johnson described his conversation with Mr Macron as “excellent”, but gave no details on what relaxation the French president might introduce to restrictions which have blocked freight and passenger transport over the Channel.
The phone call came around seven hours after French transport minister Jean-Baptiste Djellaba said that a new health protocol would be agreed within hours to permit the resumption of movements from the UK. The delay suggested that expected progress had not been made.
France’s block was announced late on Sunday in response to the UK’s announcement of the discovery of a virulent mutation of the Covid-19 virus, and is due to last for at least 48 hours. It has forced Dover’s ferry port and the Eurotunnel rail link at Folkestone to close to traffic leaving the UK.
Transport secretary Grant Shapps said that numbers of trucks stuck on the M20 waiting to cross to France had fallen from around 500 to 174 over the course of today, with the Department for Transport opening facilities at Manston Airport to help deal with queues.