LONDON, 01 November 2021, (TON): Macron's office said “they agreed to work on ‘practical and operational measures’ to resolve the dispute in the coming days.”

The French and British leaders agreed on Sunday to defuse days of sniping over post-Brexit fishing rights, according to Paris, potentially averting a full-blown trade war that would embroil the entire EU.

President Emmanuel Macron and Prime Minister Boris Johnson met for about 25 minutes on the margins of a G20 summit in Rome, aides said, a day after Johnson complained to EU chief Ursula von der Leyen that French threats to trigger reprisals over the row were "completely unjustified."

Macron's office said “they agreed to work on practical and operational measures to resolve the dispute in the coming days.”

It said “they were united on the need for a "de-escalation" with concrete action to come "as soon as possible.”

There was no immediate comment from Downing Street.

Johnson has been stressing at the G20 that all sides must focus on the bigger picture of climate change as he prepares to host more than 120 world leaders at the COP26 summit from Monday.

But both the UK and French governments had been intensifying their angry rhetoric, and France last week detained a British trawler that was allegedly fishing illegally in its waters.