Michel Barnier Admits to Kids That It's Hard Dealing with Brexit

(Bloomberg) -- The European Union's chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier got a Brexit grilling from an unlikely source: elementary school children on his tour of Northern Ireland.

“Do you have a difficult job, Mr Barnier?” the Frenchman tweeted ruefully, alongside photos of him posing with kids from Derry. “Yes, very.”

His answer is the latest confirmation of just how difficult it is dealing trying to come up with a solution on how to avoid erecting a hard border with Ireland when the U.K. leaves the EU -- technically on March 2019.

Barnier earlier walked the historic walls of the city, also known as Londonderry, and was shown the Bogside area of the city where British soldiers opened fire on Bloody Sunday, killing 13 civilians in 1972.

To contact the reporter on this story: Kitty Donaldson in London at kdonaldson1@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Flavia Krause-Jackson at fjackson@bloomberg.net, Stuart Biggs

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