The US president, Donald Trump, has arrived in Paris and is due to be greeted with a show of military pomp by the French leader, Emmanuel Macron, who has chosen to move from his aggressive first handshake and to style himself as Trump’s new “straight-talking” best friend on the international stage.
The centrist president’s invitation to Trump might at first seem surprising, after he publicly asserted his superiority by crunching Trump’s knuckles at their first meeting in May and later rebuked him for pulling the US out of the Paris climate accord.
But the invitation is part of a determined strategy by Macron, who – observing the US president’s increasing isolation on the western stage – has sensed an opportunity.
Christophe Castaner, a government minister and spokesman, described it as a kind of persuasive bridge-building with Trump. “Sometimes Trump makes decisions we don’t like, such as on climate. But we can deal with it in two ways: we can say ‘We are not going to talk to you,’ or we can offer you our hand to bring you back into the circle,” he said.
The invitation for a US leader to attend this year’s Bastille day military parade had been in the pipeline long before either Trump or Macron were elected, because 2017 marks the 100th anniversary of the entry of the United States into the first world war. Inviting foreign leaders to Bastille Day celebrations is common in France – Nicolas Sarkozy even made Syria’s Bashar al-Assad a guest of honour in 2008. But it was not certain Trump would accept when Macron personally re-issued the invitation in a phone call last month.
The Elysée has added what one official called a personal “post-card” tourism touch: instead of dining at the Elysée Palace, Macron and his wife, Brigitte, will invite the Trumps to eat a meal cooked by the chef Alain Ducasse in a restaurant at the top of the Eiffel Tower.
It is a deliberate attempt to show the French capital was still “welcoming” after Trump told a rally that “Paris is no longer Paris” following a string of terrorist attacks.
The Trump organisation has no financial interests in France and it is unclear how well the US president knows the country. He said last year that the 2015 Paris terrorist attacks would have been very different if French citizens were allowed to carry guns.
On Thursday afternoon Macron and Trump will hold more than an hour of talks at the Elysée Palace focused mainly on counter-terrorism, Syria, Iraq and French anti-jihadi military operations in north Africa. “Where we have differences, we talk about them very clearly – such as on climate – but there are issues like counter-terrorism where we are on the same line and need close cooperation and common action,” an Elysée official said.
French diplomats said Macron had been concerned about Trump feeling backed into a corner. The French leader has seen a potential opportunity to sway US thinking and elevate the role of France – a nuclear power and permanent member of the UN security council – in global affairs, in particular on Syria and the Middle East.
Guardian
