A solemn ceremony under the Arc de Triomphe, a descent of the Champs-Elysées with the Republican Guard, and the gold of the Elysée Palace: Emmanuel Macron is deploying all the pomp of the Republic for Joe Biden this Saturday, June 8, as part of the state visit of the American president, who had taken out his aviator glasses for the occasion. “France was our first ally and remains one of our main ones,” he recalled, on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings.
The French head of state and his wife Brigitte welcomed the American presidential couple, Joe and Jill Biden, during a ceremony at the Arc de Triomphe, shortly after 12:30 p.m. The two presidents laid a wreath and rekindled the flame of the Unknown Soldier.
Then, under a beautiful Parisian sun, they drove down the most famous avenue in the world, decked out in the colours of their two countries, surrounded by 140 horses and 38 motorcyclists. They finally arrived at the Elysée Palace for a working lunch, before a gala dinner in the evening.
During the afternoon, the two men made statements to the press. While four Israeli hostages from Hamas were released earlier in the day, Joe Biden welcomed the release and reaffirmed his determination: “We will work until all the hostages have returned home.”
France and the United States also said they were “determined to exercise the necessary precessions” on Iran, which is in “a strategy of all-out escalation,” warned Emmanuel Macron, referring to “unprecedented attacks against Israel, regional destabilization maneuvers.”
On the Ukrainian issue, too, President Biden was firm: “We will not back down.” The United States “stands firmly alongside Ukraine” and will not fail to support it with its allies, he assured. On the major international issues of the moment, the 81-year-old democrat and the president, thirty-five years his junior, are generally in harmony, if not impeccably aligned.
Everything is being done, on both sides, to clearly show that “we are closer than we have ever been,” as a White House spokesman, John Kirby, said on Friday, in order to celebrate a relationship that has returned to normal after a few bumps.
On the French side, people are pleased to be entitled to the longest foreign visit of the 81-year-old Democrat, and this, in the middle of the campaign for the American presidential election in November, which will see him face Donald Trump.
Joe Biden arrived in Paris on Wednesday morning – with no public event on his agenda that day, before participating in Normandy, with Emmanuel Macron, on Thursday, in the commemorations of the Allied landings of 1944. He will leave on Sunday after visiting an American cemetery.
Diplomatic crisis
The relationship between the two men has greatly improved since in September 2021, the United States took away, under France’s nose, a major submarine contract with Australia.
The diplomatic crisis that followed remains one of the most intense episodes of tension between the United States and its “oldest ally”, as they like to call France.
Trade issues are also sources of tension between the two sides of the Atlantic, since Washington decided to massively help companies in the energy transition sector that invest in the United States.
“One of the things that [the American president] respects and admires so much about President Macron is his ability to be as honest and direct as he is. That’s what he wants to see in a friend and an ally: an ability to get to the point and say what you think,” assured John Kirby.
To overcome the estrangement, the American president had also reserved for his French counterpart the first state visit to the White House of his mandate, in December 2022. The two men now seem completely reconciled.
However, this day of diplomatic pomp could fuel criticism from the French head of state’s opponents who accuse him, before the European elections on Sunday, of having campaigned all week under the guise of dealing with foreign policy.
This article is originally published on liberation.fr
