Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived late Monday morning, May 6, at the Elysée for the official start of his two-day state visit to France, to mark 60 years of diplomatic relations between the two countries. He was welcomed by his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron in the main courtyard of the presidential palace where the Republican Guard had been deployed. The French president advocated before the Chinese president “fair rules for all” in commerce and claimed that the “coordination” with China over Ukraine and the Middle East was “decisive”. Follow our live stream.
“Xi Jinping is not our friend.” “It is not by flattering tyrants that we demonstrate realism”Raphaël Glucksmann, MEP and head of the PS-Place publique list in the European elections, was indignant on France Inter. He accuses the Chinese president of having “deported the Uyghur people, repressed the Tibetans and Hong Kongers, repressed opponents and threatened the Taiwanese.”
An action by Reporters Without Borders. The NGO defending press freedom organized an action on Monday morning in front of the Arc de Triomphe to protest against the welcome given to the Chinese president. RSF intends to recall that 119 journalists are currently in detention in China and that its representatives can no longer travel to Chinese territory.
Protests by Tibetans and Uyghurs. Some 2,000 people, mainly from France’s Tibetan community, gathered in Paris on Sunday to denounce the Chinese president’s visit. For their part, the Uighurs denounced this reception, while the French president never received them. “We asked Emmanuel Macron, on several occasions, to receive us, but he never took our requests seriously,” lamented Dilnur Reyhan, of the Uyghurs Institute of Europe.