Boris Johnson video shows excruciating exchange with adviser: 'They love it when I speak French'

A clip of Boris Johnson in an “excruciating” exchange with a senior Foreign Office diplomat has provoked responses of incredulity on social media.

The footage, from forthcoming BBC documentary Inside the Foreign Office, shows the former foreign secretary discussing an upcoming speech to be given in Paris with the director of Europe.

“It’s just too boring, it needs more gags,” Mr Johnson complains to Caroline Wilson aboard a flight from Lisbon to the French capital. She replies that she will look at it.

Glancing at the draft he is holding, she then asks: “Are you really going to do the whole raft of foreign policy issues in French?”

He ignores her, stumbling over his wording in French as he reads the speech before she interrupts him to say: “It might be best just to speak to the headlines in French.”

But Mr Johnson insists: “They love it when I talk French.”

The pair then launch into a conversation over France’s stance on Brexit, with Mr Johnson asking in French why Paris is acting “like naughty children”.

After Ms Wilson explains the likely geopolitical reasons for Emmanuel Macron’s hardline stance on Britain’s exit from the EU, Mr Johnson accuses the French of “having their cake and eating it”.

“We shouldn’t probably use the cake analogy too much,” Ms Wilson responds.

“Astonishing, it’s the real life The Thick of It, just as we all imagined the Foreign Office was with Boris Johnson at its helm,” one Twitter user commented, in reference to the BBC’s satirical comedy about a fictitious government department.

Another wrote: “Just excruciating. She’s a diplomat so it’s her job but Caroline Wilson, Director of Europe [at the] Foreign Office is admirably poker faced during this exchange.”