French President Emmanuel Macron told Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Thursday that there was not enough time to wholly rewrite Britain’s Brexit divorce deal before an Oct. 31 deadline. Johnson met Macron at the Elysee Palace a day after talks in Berlin with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who challenged Britain to come up with acceptable alternatives to the agreed safety net provision for the UK-Irish land border. More than three years after the United Kingdom voted to quit the European Union, it is still unclear on what terms – or indeed whether – the bloc’s second largest economy will leave the club it joined in 1973.
