London/Paris — France insisted the UK pay a Brexit bill of as much as €100bn, underlining the hurdles to substantial progress in negotiations on a new relationship with the European Union. As the second round of talks wraps up in Brussels, French Finance Minister Bruno le Maire used a hearing in the French parliament in Paris on Wednesday evening to take a hard line on what the EU believes the UK owes the bloc in terms of liabilities and obligations. To drive his point home, he evoked the spirit of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher when she won a rebate on Britain’s payments to the central EU budget, complaining that the UK was losing out despite being one of the biggest contributors. "I will say what Margaret Thatcher used to say: ‘We want our money back,’" Le Maire said, citing the €100bn figure that has been on the high end of the amounts touted. "We can always debate the amount, but the fact that the UK must pay what it owes to the EU budget is a nonnegotiable prer...
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