Evan Vucci/AP
President Joe Biden, First Lady Jill Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte Macron, appear onstage during a ceremony marking the 80th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy, Thursday, June 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Paris
CNN
—
President Joe Biden will be greeted by close allies on Saturday as French President Emmanuel Macron welcomes his U.S. counterpart Biden to Paris for an official visit.
The visit comes as the United States strengthens its alliance with its oldest ally amid Russia’s war in Ukraine, but also amid signs of rifts over the Middle East conflict.
Macron will greet the president and first lady Jill Biden in an official welcoming ceremony that will begin at Paris’ landmark Arc de Triomphe, followed by a parade to the Elysee Palace and a working lunch. The two leaders will make statements to the press, but no formal press conference is expected.
In the evening, Macron and his wife will host the Bidens at the famed Musée d’Orsay for a state dinner.
Macron is returning the favor to Biden, who welcomed the French president to the White House for a state visit in December 2022, his first since taking office.
Leaders will have much to discuss on Saturday.
Macron, like other U.S. allies, has privately questioned the future of U.S. leadership in the world if Biden loses the November presidential election to former President Donald Trump, with whom he had a more complicated relationship.
Biden frequently referred to meeting with world leaders at the G7 summit early in his term and declaring, “America is back.”
“And the leader of France looked at me and said, ‘How long?'” Biden said, drawing laughs, at a fundraiser in New York City in March. “I wasn’t joking. He was serious when he said, ‘How long?'”
Biden has frequently pointed to these fears as he makes his case for a second term, but Europe also finds itself contending with a rise in populism.
On Ukraine, the two sides have stressed their support for the war-torn country, with Biden apologizing to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday for congressional delays and announcing a new $225 billion aid package.
Meanwhile, Macron has been one of the key leaders of the European response to Russia’s aggression in Ukraine. France has announced it will double its defense budget, surpassing NATO’s 2% defense spending threshold, and has restarted domestic production of critical military materials.
Regarding the war between Israel and Hamas, President Macron supported the ceasefire proposal put forward by President Biden, Post to X “The war in Gaza must end. We support the US proposal for a lasting peace,” he said last week.
But France broke with Western allies last month after its foreign ministry voiced support for an International Criminal Court decision seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Gaza’s Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.Biden called the ICC decision “outrageous.”
But U.S.-French relations have improved dramatically from the lows they hit early in the Biden administration. In September 2021, Macron took the extraordinary step of recalling his ambassador to Washington over a U.S.-Australia submarine deal that blindsided France and cost it billions of dollars in defense contracts.
“They have a warm and close relationship,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters Friday night. “One of the things the president respects and admires about President Macron is that he is just as honest and forthright as President Joe Biden is. That’s what he wants to see in a friend and an ally.”
Kirby said Biden and Macron are also expected to discuss deepening maritime cooperation in the Indo-Pacific, and are expected to announce increased U.S.-French technical cooperation on building maritime law enforcement capacity and port security in the region.
“I think you’ll find that we have the closest relationship we’ve ever had with our French allies,” Kirby added.
CNN’s Kayla Touche and Xiaofei Xu contributed to this report.
