French Presidents Emmanuel Macron and Brazilian Presidents Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva highlighted the partnership between the two countries and their own complicity by launching on Tuesday, deep in the tropical forest, a green investment program for the Amazon.
Coming from the French department of Guyana, Mr. Macron was welcomed by Lula in Belém, a city in northern Brazil which will host COP30 in 2025.
The two men displayed their closeness: both in shirt sleeves, they multiplied smiles and warm gestures, regularly holding hands.
In the lush setting of the island of Combu, in the middle of the forest, Emmanuel Macron and Lula launched a program near Belém aimed at raising “one billion euros of public and private investment over the next four years” in the Brazilian and Guyanese Amazon.
This announcement, which targets “bio-economy” projects combining economic development and environmental protection, is part of an international roadmap that the two heads of state intend to promote in the run-up to COP30.
This involves placing “indigenous peoples and local communities at the heart of decision-making”, according to the roadmap published by the French presidency.
The world’s largest rainforest plays a vital role against global warming by absorbing carbon emissions.
Lula, who promised to stop deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon by 2030, can already boast of having in 2023 halved the phenomenon, generated by agricultural and mining exploitation and trafficking.
The fight against the destruction of the forest is a “profession of faith”, launched Lula. According to him, it is not a question of changing the Amazon into a “sanctuary of humanity”, but of ensuring that “the indigenous people can participate in everything that is drawn from the land they inhabit”.
A highly symbolic, but also joyful, moment was Mr. Macron’s presentation of the Legion of Honor to Raoni Metuktire. This leader of the Kayapo people has become in recent decades the global icon of the defense of the Amazon.
“The fight” for the forest and its peoples, “I wanted to say that we will continue to lead it alongside you,” Mr. Macron said to the old indigenous leader.
“Very worried that the white man continues to destroy nature,” the cacique urged the two presidents to provide “support” so that there are “more indigenous lands” returned to indigenous peoples. And asked for their support to win the Nobel Peace Prize.
Insults under Bolsonaro
For this first official trip to Brazil by a French president in eleven years, Mr. Macron intends to turn the page on the years of the far-right presidency of Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2022).
In the midst of the crisis over the fires in the Amazon, Jair Bolsonaro and his ministers made insulting remarks towards President Macron and his wife.
The French head of state will visit the Itaguai naval base (southeast) on Wednesday to push the defense partnership between the two countries.
The third of four conventionally powered submarines born from Franco-Brazilian cooperation will be launched on this occasion in the presence of the two leaders.
Brasilia could also call on Paris to help it develop nuclear propulsion on a fifth submarine. Such technology transfers, very sensitive in terms of sovereignty and non-proliferation, would represent a small revolution seen from France.
On Thursday, the French president will be welcomed in the capital Brasilia by Lula for discussions dominated by major international issues.
If the two men want to advance the ecological transition and the reform of international governance, there is no shortage of angry issues between France, a permanent member of the UN Security Council, and Brazil, a key player in the BRICS, the block of emerging countries.
Starting with the free trade agreement between the European Union and Mercosur (Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Bolivia), a sea serpent that Paris is blocking against the backdrop of the agricultural crisis in Europe.
Mr. Macron should also recall the importance that the G20, chaired this year by Brazil, must continue to give to the war in Ukraine.
Lula, who poses as champion of the “global South”, insists for his part that responsibilities are shared in Ukraine and refuses to take sides against Russia.