American Presidents Joe Biden and French Presidents Emmanuel Macron displayed their unity of views on Saturday in Paris in the face of transatlantic challenges, starting with the war in Ukraine, and the specter of a possible return of Donald Trump.
“We stand firmly alongside our allies, France. I repeat, we will not shirk,” insisted Joe Biden during a statement alongside his counterpart at the Élysée.
Washington, however, is careful not to follow all the impulses of the French president, for example on the possible sending of military instructors to Ukrainian soil.
Emmanuel Macron, for his part, praised the “clarity and loyalty of a partner who loves and respects Europeans”, a remark in the form of a dig at Donald Trump.
The former American president regularly threatens to no longer participate in the protection of Europeans against Russia within the Atlantic Alliance if he is re-elected in November and if they do not increase their financial participation in the Organization transatlantic.
Joe Biden also assured, after the release of four Israeli hostages in Gaza, that the United States would continue to mobilize until “all” were released.
“Synchronization”
“We will not stop working until all the hostages have returned home,” he said. “We welcome the four hostages released today,” added his French counterpart.
Since the unprecedented Hamas attack, Joe Biden has been the strongest supporter of the offensive led by Israel in Gaza, where France distances itself from the way in which the Israeli army conducts its operations.
Paris, for example, recently canceled the participation of Israeli arms manufacturers in the major Eurosatory defense exhibition.
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.
“Our desire is truly that we can move towards synchronization of our economies […] in terms of regulation, level of investment” from green industries to artificial intelligence, assured the French president who had heavily insisted on the distortion of transtalantic competition during his state visit to Washington in December 2022.
On the other hand, according to Mr. Macron, the two leaders agreed on “China’s potentially unfair practices”, which generate “overcapacity”. Faced with this, “we must act in a coordinated manner,” urged the French president, who received his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in May, again for a state visit.
Emmanuel Macron displayed all the splendor of the Republic for his host, who was making his first state visit to France, following the commemorations of the 80e anniversary of the Allied landings in Normandy.
After a ceremony at the Arc de Triomphe, the American president’s limousine, bearing the emblem of the White House, descended the Champs-Élysées escorted by 140 horses and 38 bikers from the Republican Guard.
Before the Europeans
Joe and Jill Biden were then welcomed at the Élysée by the French presidential couple for a working lunch. Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron will also give a state dinner in their honor in the presence of many guests.
Joe Biden, who arrived in Paris on Wednesday, participated in Normandy on Thursday, with Emmanuel Macron, the Ukrainian Volodymyr Zelensky and around twenty heads of state and government, in the D-Day commemorations. He will leave on Sunday after visiting an American cemetery. The state visit itself takes place on Saturday.
This day of diplomatic ceremonies could fuel criticism from opponents of the French head of state who accuse him, before Sunday’s European elections, of having campaigned all week under the guise of dealing with foreign policy.
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 sharpest episodes of tension between the United States and their “oldest ally”, as they like to call France.
To overcome the disagreement, the American president had also reserved the first state visit to the White House of his mandate for his French counterpart, in December 2022.