The US Secretary of State was initially only to meet with Emmanuel Bonne, Emmanuel Macron’s diplomatic adviser.
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Objective: to start picking up the pieces after weeks of falling out. The head of American diplomacy, Anthony Blinken, was received Tuesday October 5 by the French President Emmanuel Macron in order to “to help restore confidence between France and the United States” after the submarine crisis, said the Elysee.
The Secretary of State, whose agenda only included an interview with Emmanuel Bonne, Emmanuel Macron’s diplomatic adviser, “was then received for a long time face to face by the President of the Republic”, specifies the Elysee in a press release, stressing that Paris and Washington “continue their coordination work on issues of common interest, be it EU-NATO cooperation, the Sahel, or the Indo-Pacific area”.
Relations between Paris and Washington suddenly became strained in mid-September, when United States President Joe Biden announced a new alliance with Australia and the United Kingdom in the Indo-Pacific region, as part of his international priority: countering China. This partnership, dubbed Aukus, aroused rare anger from France because it torpedoed a mega-contract for French submarines with the Australians.
It took a phone call between Joe Biden and Emmanuel Macron, after a week of intense tension, to initiate a certain appeasement. The tenant of the White House admitted that the United States could have better communicated with its long-time ally. And the two heads of state launched a “in-depth consultation process”.