With lamb and cheese, Macron tries to charm China’s Xi in the Pyrenees

07 May 2024
By Elizabeth Pineau, Bart Biesemans and Ingrid Melander

EXCERPT

Macron has embraced, hugged, winked at or slapped counterparts on the back. He did not chance this with Xi.

Xi’s Pyrenees invite has echoes of Trump joining Macron in 2017 to watch the Bastille Day parade, and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s 2019 trip to the French president’s Bregancon fortress summer retreat in southeast France.

“Emmanuel Macron attempted this narcissistic diplomacy of ‘I flatter the tyrant’ with Vladimir Putin for five years, with the Bregancon fort … the camaraderie,” Raphael Glucksmann, who leads the French Socialists’ European Parliament ticket, told RTL radio.

“And all that ended with what, the invasion of Ukraine and the threats to our democracies.”

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