2023-09-20 19:19:38
Ceremony in the Arc de Triompheair parade, dinner at the Palace of Versailles…The French president, Emmanuel Macronhas received in style the British King Charles III, who began this Wednesday afternoon a three-day state visit in France. Six months after this diplomatic meeting was canceled at the last minute due to the massive and heated protests against the unpopular French pension reform, the French leader has taken the spinet out of that fiasco. His country will not be the first to host a foreign visit by the British monarch – in the end it was Germany – but this meeting does take place at a time of thawing relations between Paris and London.
“This visit comes at a very good time, with an evident improvement in relations in recent months,” said Peter Ricketts, the former British ambassador in Paris, in an interview with the newspaper Release. After recent years of constant friction between Paris and London over the Brexit and the migratory situation in the English Channel, the arrival of Rishi Sunak —with numerous points in common with Macron—calmed those tensions. In addition, the French president met on Tuesday with the Labor leader Keir Starmer, head of the opposition in the United Kingdom and who leads by a very wide distance in the polls ahead of the next general elections, scheduled for next year or early 2025.
As is usual in the British crown, protocol and symbolic take precedence. No major statements or political decisions are expected during Charles III’s visit to Paris and Bordeaux. His main function: to symbolize this reconciliation between France and the United Kingdom.
A reception in style
“You came as a prince, now you return as a king. Welcome your majesty!”Macron stated on the social network X (formerly Twitter). To receive Charles III and Queen Camilla, the centrist leader has not skimped on monumentality, of which Paris and its region have plenty. In fact, this reception clearly exceeds in gallons to those given in the past to the heads of state of the two main powers in the world, such as the American president, Donald Trumpin July 2017, or the Chinese Xi Jinping in March 2019.
After their arrival at Parisian Orly airport, Charles III and Camilla were received by the Prime Minister, Élisabeth Borne. They then participated in a ceremony on the Champs-Elysées and in front of the tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Both leaders They met at the Elysée and then they planted an oak tree that the Palace of Versailles has given to the monarch in the British embassy – located very close to the headquarters of the French presidency. And in the evening a majestic dinner is planned in Versailles.
Lavish dinner in Versailles
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With multimillionaire businessmen (Bernard Arnault, Xavier Niel…) and cultural and sports personalities invited (Mick Jagger, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Arsène Wenger…), the meeting at Versailles It represents one of the highlights of Charles III’s trip. The king will also give on Thursday a speech in the Senate before senators and deputies, at the most political moment. In the French press, rivers of ink have flowed with the menu for that dinner, prepared by the best French chefs. An act that delights lovers of the British crown and the gossip press, but which runs the risk of reinforcing the image of a Macron distant from citizens and his problems.
“We have to imagine the clash of images. On the one hand, a liter of gasoline costs 2 euros and people are forced to skip one meal a day. On the other, this table of bankers and courtiers of Franco-British relations. This clash of images comes at a bad time“, warned the left-wing editorialist François Degois on the station South Radio. The French president had this third week of September marked in red on his calendar as a good opportunity to distance himself from his eventful second term: the visit of Charles III will be accompanied by that of Pope Francisco the weekend in Marseille. But given the incipient controversies, it is not clear that she will achieve it.
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