“I keep the memory of a friend of France, a queen of hearts who marked her country and her century forever.“, Emmanuel Macron was one of the first heads of state to pay tribute to Elizabeth II, Thursday, September 9. He thus greeted The queen of the sixteen kingdoms loved France, which returned it well”, which knew 10 French presidents during his 70-year reign.
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“The French people are also in mourning“, he added, specifying that he was addressing “His Majesty the King“Charles III,”to the Royal Family, to Her Majesty’s Government and to the British people the testimony of his centuries-old friendship and his sadness“. Emmanuel Macron wants, in fact, to associate the French with the mourning of the British: this is why he has decided that the flags of all public buildings, including the Elysée, will be at half mast from this Friday, September 9 and for the funeral of Elizabeth II, a rare thing. Since his election in 2017, Emmanuel Macron has not had the opportunity to welcome Elizabeth II to the Élysée but he has greeted her three times in the United Kingdom: the June 5, 2019 for the 75th anniversary of D-Day in Portsmouth, December 3, 2019 at Buckingham Palace on the sidelines of a NATO summit, then June 11, 2021 in Cornwall for the G7 summit.
The unanimous political class
Since her first trip in 1948, Elizabeth II has made numerous visits to France: to Paris for state visits each time triggering popular fever, but also to Bordeaux, Toulouse or Blois… Moreover, Emmanuel Macron, François Hollande, Nicolas Sarkozy, all three retain the same thing: the Queen’s attachment to France. Three presidents from different sides, three tributes in the same tone, like the whole of the very republican French political class: it is the “deep respect” expressed by Jean-Pierre Raffarin, the “figurehead“that Marine Le Pen salutes, “the talent and the political sense” that the ecologist Sandrine Rousseau finds in her… A tribute that transcends divisions and the executive has understood it well, by choosing to associate the together the French in mourning for the British.
After a short message on social networks, the head of state, who has met the queen three times in the United Kingdom, also wants to address the British again. A flag of the United Kingdom, for example, has been placed on the steps of
the Elysée, dedicated “To Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. To the British people“. The Eiffel Tower, it did not sparkle at midnight and remained extinguished, Thursday evening, in tribute to the British monarch.
To Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
To the British people. pic.twitter.com/G2bHdDtBjW— Elysee (@Elysee) September 8, 2022
Protocol obliges, Emmanuel Macron will very quickly also have to get closer to Charles III: the president, who exchanged with the one who was then Prince of Wales last June, plans to send a letter to the new sovereign.
The tradition also wants him to send her a gift for her coronation. Elizabeth II had been offered a gold medal bearing her image, struck by the Paris mint 70 years ago. The tenant of the Elysée was then called Vincent Auriol.