In an unusual spat that may foretell choppy relations across the English Channel, a French government minister attacked Britain’s opposition Conservatives months before an election, calling their policy on Europe “pathetic” and reflecting a “bizarre sense of autism.” Pierre Lellouche, the minister for European affairs, was speaking to The Guardian in Britain after the Conservative leader, David Cameron, promised on Wednesday to limit British integration in some areas of European Union policy if he came to power after elections that must be held by June. Mr. Cameron spoke one day after the Lisbon Treaty to strengthen the European Union cleared its last major hurdle. He announced that he would not hold a referendum on the accord if he became prime minister. “A made-up referendum might make people feel better for five minutes,” he said in a speech in London, “but my job is to put together a plan that lasts five years.” But Mr. Cameron, whose party (Conservatives) has historically displayed a powerful and often divisive streak of skepticism about Britain’s relationship with Europe, promised that any future European treaties would be put to referendums. He also pledged to seek to withdraw Britain from some aspects of European law relating to jobs, criminal law and other areas.
“They have one line, and they just repeat one line,” Mr. Lellouche was quoted as saying of Conservative policy. “It is a very bizarre sense of autism. He added: “It is time when the destiny of Europe is being defined — whether or not we will exist as a third of the world’s G.D.P. capable of fighting it out on climate, on trade, on every issue on the surface of the earth. We need to be united, otherwise we will be wiped out and marginalized.”
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