“A friend of France”, in the words of Emmanuel Macron. Words echoed by his two predecessors, François Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy. These three presidents, Queen Elizabeth had met them: in Cornwall last year during the G7 for Emmanuel Macron; in France on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the landing for François Hollande; in London in 2008 for Nicolas Sarkozy, at the time for the first time accompanied by the new first lady, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy.
But French presidents, the queen has known many others: ten in total! When she ascended the throne, Vincent Auriol “reigned” at the Elysée, president of the Fourth Republic.
>> Elizabeth II and France, a particular and mutual attachment
In 70 years of reign, she has multiplied visits to France, including five official visits, a record! It was even to France that she made her very first trip without her parents, when she was still “only” a princess, in 1948. In 1956, she was 30 years old, during her very first official visit. of Queen. She even gave a speech in French at the gala dinner hosted by President René Coty. Because if her “taylor is rich” and her inimitable hats, the queen spoke our language very well. She had learned it during the war. She also admired General de Gaulle, exiled to London in 1940 to lead the French Resistance to the Nazi occupier.
Twenty years later, in 1960, during a State visit by the French President to London, Queen Elizabeth had installed in the Buckingham suite reserved for the General the bed that George VI had made to measure for her during the war. .
Queen Elizabeth II returned to Paris in 1972, the year the United Kingdom entered the Common Market. We also remember his complicit smiles displayed alongside François Mitterrand in 1994 during the inauguration of the Channel Tunnel. And two years later, in May 1996, it was Jacques Chirac and Bernadette who crossed the Channel to bow to London.
A little as if our old Republic, which likes to make fun of British eccentricities, still felt a little guilty, deep down, for having cut off the head of a king.
Isn’t it said, moreover, that the Constitution of the Fifth Republic made the head of state a sort of republican monarch?