Fran�ois Hollande has warned that Britain will face consequences if it votes to leave the EU, raising the prospect of refugee camps in Calais being relocated to the UK.
In his strongest intervention in the referendum so far, the French president said at a summit with David Cameron: “I don’t want to scare you, but I just want to say the truth. There will be consequences in many areas: on the single market, on financial trade, on economic development between our two countries.
“Now that doesn’t mean that everything will be destroyed, I don’t want to give you a catastrophic scenario. But there will be consequences especially in terms of people as well.”
He added: “Now, it won’t obviously put in question the historical relations between France and the UK, our friendship, but there will be consequences especially in the way we handle the situations that we just mentioned in terms of immigration. There will be consequences.
“Now, there’s no solution where there are no consequences. There are consequences if the in [campaign] wins or if the out wins. There will be consequences both ways. Every time the people speak out in a referendum there are consequences.”
Hollande’s intervention, at a press conference alongside Cameron, demonstrated how willing France is to support the arguments being made by the prime minister about the risks of Britain voting to leave the EU in the referendum on 23 June.
However, Cameron denied that Downing Street was orchestrating a campaign in which foreign leaders and big business figures tried to scare the British public about leaving.
“Lots of people are making their views known, people all over the world, and we can choose to either to listen to them or not to listen to them,” he said.
“I would say to people, when you have got the leaders of countries that wish Britain well – like New Zealand, Australia, Canada, America, France – when you get messages from them, that’s worth listening to.
“When business organisations both representing large and small businesses are saying there are risks to Britain leaving the EU, I would say, listen to those people. When you have got people in all walks of life in Britain with concerns about what might happen, I would say listen.”
Cameron also denied there was any “David Icke-style” conspiracy in which the government was asking foreign leaders to scare the British public.
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