A livid Boris Johnson once called Emmanuel Macron a “c–t” and “Putin’s lickspittle” — and threatened to “punch his lights out” in “an orgy of frog-bashing,” according to explosive claims from an ex-spokesman.
The then-UK leader had already found it “nauseating” to see his French counterpart visiting Russian President Vladimir Putin last year in doomed efforts to broker peace, according to Johnson’s then-director of communications, Guto Harri.
But Johnson flipped his lid when Macron, 45, “turbocharged” pressure the British PM was facing over his handling of refugees flooding out of war-torn Ukraine — by “criticizing Boris pretty directly,” Harri recalled in the podcast “Unprecedented.”
“Much as Boris is not prone to getting really cross, nor using particularly strong language, this was one [time] where he really flipped,” Harri recalled.
“He just launched into a violent attack on Emmanuel Macron” during a morning meeting “with a small gang” of his closest advisers, he said.
“Basically saying he’s a four-letter word that begins with ‘c,’ ‘He’s a weirdo, he’s Putin’s lickspittle,'” Harri recalled.
The prime minister said that “we need to go studs up on this one,” the ex-comms chief said, referring to an athlete deliberately hurting other players with his cleats.
He said Johnson then told the others, “‘We need an orgy of frog-bashing — I’m going to have to punch his lights out.’
“Pretty strong stuff,” Harri added.
In a separate column for the Times of London, Harri also wrote how “Johnson was furious, promising to ‘punch Macron’s lights out.'”
Despite the inflammatory statements, Harri quickly noted in the podcast that the European leaders “patched it up” weeks later — and even “got on really well.”
Within months, Johnson would be out of office following a series of controversies, including partying in Downing Street while the rest of the nation was under his strict lockdowns.
A source close to Johnson told the UK Times that he does not recognize any of the accounts his ex-spokesman detailed in the explosive podcast.
“Mr. Johnson has had no part in this podcast or in its contents,” the source said.
“We would never comment on these matters and Mr. Johnson deplores any attempt to do so.”
