Commenting on the postponing of the state visit to France by King Charles because of the disruption of protests over over pension reforms, Peter Ricketts, British ambassador to France between 2012 and 2016, said the planned banquet in the palace of Versailles would have been a 'particularly bad idea', with 'all kinds of echoes from the past going back to the revolution'.
King Charles's state visit to France between Sunday and Wednesday has been called off by President Emmanuel Macron in face of major disruption caused by popular protests against his reform of the pensions system, and with unions calling for a major day of action on Tuesday.
A visit to France by the UK's King Charles and Queen Consort Camilla, due to take place between next Sunday and Wednesday, is threatened with chaos as the continuing movement against President Emmanuel Macron's pension reforms sees unions refusing to prepare his red-carpet reception, while a further day of protest action has been called for Tuesday, the day of his planned visit to Bordeaux, where protestors on Thursday burned down the historic wooden door of its city hall.
French foreign minister Catherine Colonna on Tuesday made her third visit to Ukraine since taking up her post in May, holding talks in Kyiv with her Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba and with Ukraine's top prosecutor, Andriy Kostin.
French President Emmanuel Macron began a three-day visit to Algeria on Thursday, which his office said was to 'lay a foundation to rebuild and develop' the often frought relations between the two countries, while analysts say that Macron will press for an increase in Algerian gas exports.
Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman visited Paris on Thursday for talks with President Emmanuel Macron who later hosted him for dinner at the Élysée Palace, amid outrage from rights activists. In exchange for staging the prince’s comeback on the international diplomatic scene, four years after the murder of Saudi journalist and dissident Jamal Khashoggi, Macron was hoping to obtain a substantial rise in Saudi oil production. But, as René Backmann writes in this analysis of Macron’s dealings with “MBS”, the move may well prove to benefit only he who Amnesty International secretary general Agnès Callamard has dubbed “the murderous prince”.
Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, is in Paris for talks and dinner on Thursday with President Emmanuel Macron, who is expected to press the Saudi de-facto ruler to increase oil exports to ease the energy crisis caused by the war in Ukraine, in a visit denounced by rights groups and the fiancée of journalist Jamal Khashoggi who was murdered by Saudi agents in 2018.
On the back of a NATO summit in Madrid, Australia's newly elected prime minister Anthony Albanese arrived in Paris on Friday for talks with President Emmanuel Macron, declaring his visit 'represents a new start for our countries' relationship' following the acrimony of a submarine contract cancelled by his predecessor Scott Morrison.
Speaking from Iraq, where he is ona 48-hour visit this weekend, French President Emmanuel Macron said Paris was in 'fragile and provisional' talks with Taliban officials about future evacuations of Afghan civilians to France, which have now been suspended, and also pledged that his country would maintain a military presence in Iraq 'no matter what choices the Americans make'.
French President Emmanuel Macron is to make a two-day visit to Iraq, beginning on Saturday, when he will attend a meeting of officials from neighbouring countries aimed at reducing tensions in the region and visit the self-ruled Kurdish region and several religious sites.
French President Emmanuel Macron, on his first official trip to French Polynesia, said that Paris owes 'a debt' to the local population over nuclear tests carried out there between 1966 and 1996, including 63 atmospheric blasts which exposed inhabitants of the South Pacific territory to radiation.
Intent on playing a high-profile role in helping Lebanon out of economic and political collapse, french President Emmanuel Macron arrived in Beirut on Monday, his second trip since the devastating chemicals blast in the capital on August 4th and just hours after Lebanese diplomat Mustapha Adib was named as the Middle East country's new prime minister.
French President Emmanuel Macron visited blast-torn Beirut on Thursday, the first foreign leader to do so, when he announced that France will organize an international fundraising conference with other international donors to provide food, medicine, housing and other urgent aid, but warned that 'if reforms are not made, Lebanon will continue to sink'.
French President Emmanuel Macron will visit Lebanon on Thursday to meet with the country's political leaders, 48 hours after a huge explosion devastated parts of Beirut where France has already sent teams of rescuse workers, engineers and medical equipment.
French President Emmanuel Macron will visit London on Thursday - his first foreign trip since the Covid-19 virus epidemic took hold in France - when he will commemorate the 80th anniversary of Charles de Gaulle's wartime appeal from the British capital calling on the French people to resist German occupation.
