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Emmanuel Macron met the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed ben Salman, the most sensitive moment of the French president’s official trip to the Gulf, as Guillaume Daret explains in Jeddah.
It was the most delicate moment of Emmanuel Macron’s trip to the Gulf: the meeting with the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed ben Salman, nicknamed MBS, Saturday 4 December. “After a handshake between the French president and the crown prince, the smiles on the lips of the two men were present”, indicates Saturday noon from Jeddah, the journalist of France Televisions, Guillaume Daret.
This is the first visit by a leader of a large Western country since the assassination of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. The meeting was particularly scrutinized and criticized by NGOs who accuse Paris of ignoring the rights of the man. “I do not forget and do not endorse anything, but how to influence the region if we do not talk to Saudi Arabia”, replied the French president, reports Guillaume Daret. Emmanuel Macron will return to Paris in the evening.