French President Emmanuel Macron, his wife Brigitte Macron, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and his wife Peng Liyuan watch folklore dancers at the Tourmalet pass, in the Pyrenees moutains, as part of his two-day state visit to France, on May 7, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AFP

French President Emmanuel Macron was on Tuesday hosting Chinese leader Xi Jinping at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees mountains, pressing a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade.

The first day of Mr. Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday.

The peaceful mountain village of Bagnere-de-Bigorre and nearby La Mongie — as well as lunch accompanied by their wives, Peng Liyuan and Brigitte Macron — will allow Mr. Xi and Mr. Macron to explore these issues in relative privacy.

Mr. Macron personally welcomed Mr. Xi when he arrived at Tarbes airport in southwest France and the leaders headed to a mountain restaurant to dine on local lamb, cheeses and wines.

Europe is concerned that while officially neutral over the Ukraine conflict, Beijing is essentially backing Russia, which is using Chinese machine tools for weapons production.

After a bilateral meeting with Mr. Xi, Mr. Macron welcomed China’s “commitments” not to supply arms to Russia, while also expressing concern over possible deliveries of dual-use technology.

French President Emmanuel Macron and Chinese President Xi Jinping review the troops, on May 7, 2024 at the Tarbes airport, southwestern France.
| Photo Credit: AP

France’s President is hosting China’s Leader at a remote mountain pass in the Pyrenees on May 7 for private meetings after a high-stakes state visit in Paris dominated by trade disputes and Russia’s war in Ukraine.

French President Emmanuel Macron made a point of inviting Chinese President Xi Jinping to the Tourmalet Pass near the Spanish border, where Mr. Macron spent time as a child visiting his grandmother. It is meant to be a reciprocal gesture after Mr. Jinping took Mr. Macron last year to the residence of the governor of Guangdong province, where the Chinese president’s father once lived.

Snow coated nearby slopes after new snowfall overnight, and security was tightened around the area. The winding roads up to the pass were blocked by authorities on May 7 for dozens of kilometers (miles).

The mountain meetings come after a grandiose state visit by Mr. Jinping on May 6 that included a ceremonial welcome at the monument housing Napoleon’s tomb and a state dinner at the Elysee Palace with celebrities and magnates.

Mr. Jinping is on a trip to Europe aimed at reinvigorating relations at a time of global tensions. He heads next to Serbia and Hungary.

French President Emmanuel Macron speaks during a press conference. File
| Photo Credit: AP

French President Emmanuel Macron reaffirmed he did not rule out sending troops to Ukraine, saying the issue would “legitimately” arise if Russia broke through Ukrainian front lines and Kyiv made such a request, in an interview with the Economist published on May 2.

The Economist said Mr. Macron gave the interview after delivering a keynote speech last week where he declared that Europe is “mortal” and could “die” partly due to the threat posed by Russian aggression after its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

“I’m not ruling anything out, because we are facing someone who is not ruling anything out,” said Mr. Macron when asked if he stood by comments earlier this year not excluding the sending of Western troops that sent shockwaves around Europe.

Some analysts believe that Russia could be on the verge of launching a major new offensive in Ukraine.

Mr. Macron said “if Russia decided to go further, we will in any case all have to ask ourselves this question” of sending troops, describing his refusal to rule out such a move as a “strategic wake-up call for my counterparts”.

He described Russia as “a power of regional destabilisation” and “a threat to Europeans’ security”.

“I have a clear strategic objective: Russia cannot win in Ukraine,” Mr. Macron said.

“If Russia wins in Ukraine, there will be no security in Europe.

“Who can pretend that Russia will stop there? What security will there be for the other neighbouring countries, Moldova, Romania, Poland, Lithuania and the others?” he asked.

French President Emmanuel Macron.
| Photo Credit: REUTERS

President Emmanuel Macron on April 4 denounced as “bizarre and threatening” Russia’s tone following rare phone talks between the Defence Ministers of France and Russia, their first contact since 2022.

On April 3, French Defence Minister Sebastien Lecornu reached out to his Russian counterpart Sergei Shoigu, saying France was ready to step up exchanges to battle “terrorism”, according to the French Defence Ministry.

The phone call took place as France is pulling out all the stops to host the Olympic Games in Paris this summer.

Russia for its part warned France during the one-hour talks it hoped that the French secret services had not been involved in a recent attack on a concert hall in Moscow claimed by Islamic State group extremists, according to a readout from the Russian Defence Ministry.

“The comments by the Russian side were bizarre and threatening,” Mr. Macron told reporters, adding that any suggestions France might have been involved in the deadly attack were “ridiculous”.

Mr. Macron said France had been in contact with Russia as Paris had “useful information” to share on the origin and organisation of the attack that claimed the lives of at least 144 people.

“I asked the directors of the services at the appropriate ministries to have technical discussions with their (Russian) counterparts to express a message of solidarity and because we had useful information — I am not going to reveal it here — on the origin and organisation of this attack,” Mr. Macron said.

“It’s ridiculous to say that France is behind it, that the Ukrainians are behind it. It makes no sense. It does not correspond to reality, it’s a manipulation of information which is part of Russia’s arsenal of war.”

The phone talks were seen by some observers as a change of tack for Mr. Macron, who has in recent months toughened his line against Russia, refusing to rule out putting troops on the ground in Ukraine.

On April 4, Mr. Macron sought to defend that approach.

“We will have joint work with all those affected by terrorism. And when we have information we have technical exchanges,” he said.

After the talks between Mr. Lecornu and Mr. Shoigu, Moscow also said that “readiness for dialogue on Ukraine was noted” during the phone call.

France immediately shot down that suggestion.

“France neither accepted nor proposed anything of the sort” on the conflict, a source close to Mr. Lecornu told AFP.

Rio De Janiero:

Wedding photos or a diplomatic visit? The apparent “bromance” between French President Emmanuel Macron and his Brazilian counterpart Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has set social media fans alight.

During his three-day visit to Brazil, 46-year-old Macron was pictured smiling and warmly embracing Lula, 78, during a trip to the Amazonian rainforest.

Many of the images have since circulated wildly among social media users in Brazil alongside montages and witty comments.

i see a new macron/lula family christmas card dropping pic.twitter.com/zzJjFPtUxC

— ian bremmer (@ianbremmer) March 27, 2024

One picture showing the leaders raising their arms underneath a large tree has been edited to show them holding red balloons in the shape of a heart.

Another portrays the pair hand in hand, smiling as they look at the horizon while floating in a boat along the Amazon River.

Agora sim, deixei a foto do Lula com o Macrón do jeito que ela deveria ser pic.twitter.com/VYOsjM1Y2e

— Lívia Lamblet (@livialamblet) March 27, 2024

“They are going to marry in the Amazon and have their honeymoon in Paris,” joked one user on X, while others said pictures from the trip could make up a wedding album.

Macron’s warm relations with Lula mark a departure from the frosty ties between the French leader and Brazil’s former right-wing president Jair Bolsonaro, who led the country from 2019 to 2022.

His trip, which will end Thursday in Brasilia when he meets Lula at the presidential palace, saw the two leaders announce a billion-dollar green investment plan for the Amazon.

France, the seventh-largest economy in the world, and Brazil, the ninth-largest, are considered key players in a geopolitical scene marked by rivalry between China and the United States.

Paris sees Brasilia as a bridge to large emerging economies whose voices Brazil is trying to amplify through its presidency of the G20, and membership of the BRICS+ group.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

French President Emmanuel Macron. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

French President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that any forced transfer of people from the southern Gaza city of Rafah would constitute “a war crime”.

In a telephone call between the two leaders, Mr. Macron also “strongly condemned” Israel’s announcement Friday of the seizure of 800 hectares of land in the occupied West Bank for new settlements, said his office.

Activists say Israel’s declaration that the land in the northern Jordan Valley was now “state land” was the single largest such seizure in decades.

Mr. Macron also repeated his opposition to any Israeli military operation to fight Hamas in Rafah, where most of Gaza’s population has taken shelter after months of fierce fighting in the besieged territory.

In the call, Mr. Macron told Mr. Netanyahu he intended to bring a draft resolution to the UN Security Council calling for “an immediate and lasting ceasefire”.

He urged Israel to immediately open all crossing points into Gaza.

Mr. Macron also had talks with Jordan’s King Abdullah II, during which they discussed the “unjustifiable humanitarian situation in Gaza”, said the Elysee Palace.

Forcing civilians to run the risk of famine was “unjustifiable”, the two leaders said.

They also agreed on the need for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, one that “implied the creation of a Palestinian state including Gaza”.

The planned Rafah ground offensive has faced growing international opposition, with warnings it would cause mass civilian casualties and worsen the humanitarian crisis.

Israel has insisted it is necessary in its campaign to destroy Hamas.

The Gaza war was sparked by the unprecedented Hamas attack on October 7 that resulted in about 1,160 deaths in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Israel has vowed to destroy the militants, who also seized about 250 hostages, of whom Israel believes around 130 remain in Gaza, including 33 presumed dead.

Almost six months of fighting have killed 32,070 people in Gaza, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.

(from left) Emmanuel Macron, Olaf Scholz and Donald Tusk at a press conference at the Chancellery in Berlin on March 15.
| Photo Credit: AFP

French President Emmanuel Macron said in an interview published on March 16 evening that Western ground operations in Ukraine might be necessary “at some point”, days after meeting with German and Polish leaders.

Last month Mr. Macron refused to rule out putting troops on the ground in Ukraine, which prompted a stern response from Berlin and other European partners.

But the French President has not recanted from his position, but stressed that Western allies would not take the initiative.

“Maybe at some point — I don’t want it, I won’t take the initiative — we will have to have operations on the ground, whatever they may be, to counter the Russian forces,” Mr. Macron told newspaper Le Parisien in an interview conducted on March 15.

“France’s strength is that we can do it”.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz reacted angrily to Mr. Macron’s earlier refusal to rule out sending troops to Ukraine and his pointed comments urging allies not to be “cowards”.

Mr. Macron met his German and Polish counterparts in Berlin on Friday, in a show of solidarity behind Kyiv.

After the meeting, Mr. Macron said the three countries of the so-called Weimar Triangle were “united” in their aim to “never let Russia win”.

France’s President Emmanuel Macron said a Bill on assisted dying would go before parliament in May, speaking in an interview published by French media on March 10, 2024. File
| Photo Credit: AFP

French President Emmanuel Macron will present a Bill on assisted dying to go before parliament in May, he said in an interview published by French media on March 10.

The move could make France the next European country to legalise euthanasia for the terminally ill, following a long consultation with a committee of French citizens on “active assistance to dying”.

Only adults with full control of their judgement, suffering an incurable and life-threatening illness in the short to medium term and whose pain cannot be relieved will be able to “ask to be helped to die”, Mr. Macron told the La Croix and Liberation newspapers.

The change is necessary “because there are situations you cannot humanely accept”, Mr. Macron said. The goal was “to reconcile an individual’s autonomy with the nation’s solidarity.

“With this Bill, we are facing up to death,” he said.

But the highly controversial move is likely to provoke stiff opposition, and even though the Bill would be presented before the European Parliament elections in June, its passage is unlikely before 2025.

While opinion polls suggest a majority of French favour right-to-die legislation, religious leaders in the traditionally Catholic country as well as many health workers oppose it.

Mr. Macron acknowledged the debate by announcing the Bill simultaneously to La Croix, a Catholic daily, and the left-leaning Liberation, which has championed the euthanasia cause.

The move comes days after Mr. Macron spearheaded an effort that saw the right to abortion enshrined in France’s Constitution earlier this month, the first country in the world to do so.

‘Precise criteria’

The president said minors and patients suffering psychiatric or neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer’s would not be eligible.

If medical professionals gave their consent, a lethal substance would be prescribed for the patient, who could administer it themselves or with the help of a third party if they could not physically do so.

The third party can be a volunteer, the doctor or the nurse treating the patient, according to the text, while the substance can be administered at the patient’s home, in care homes for the elderly or care centres.

Medical experts would have 15 days to respond to a request for help to die and an approval would be valid for three months, during which time the patient could retract, Mr. Macron said.

Mr. Macron said that if medical professionals rejected the request, the patient could consult another medical team or appeal.

He added that he wanted to avoid the terms assisted suicide or euthanasia because the patient’s consent is essential, with a role for medical opinion and “precise criteria”.

Until now French patients in pain wishing to end their lives have had to travel abroad, including to neighbouring Belgium.

A 2005 law has legalised passive euthanasia, such as withholding artificial life support, as a “right to die”.

A 2016 law allows doctors to couple this with “deep and continuous sedation” for terminally ill patients in pain.

But active euthanasia, whereby doctors administer lethal doses of drugs to patients suffering from an incurable condition, is illegal.

Assisted suicide — whereby patients can receive help to voluntarily take their own life — is also banned.

A file photo of Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski
| Photo Credit: AP

Poland’s Foreign Minister says the presence of NATO forces “is not unthinkable” and that he appreciates the French President for not ruling out that idea.

Radek Sikorski made the observation during a discussion marking the 25th anniversary of Poland’s accession to NATO in the Polish parliament on Friday, and the Foreign Ministry posted the comments on X.

They reflect a larger European debate over how to help Ukraine as Russia has gained some momentum on the battlefield and Kyiv is running low on ammunition.

Last month French President Emmanuel Macron said the possibility of Western troops in Ukraine could not be ruled out.

The Kremlin has warned that if NATO sends combat troops, a direct conflict between the alliance and Russia would be inevitable. Russian President Vladimir Putin said such a move would risk a global nuclear conflict.

Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk was among those European leaders who initially ruled out sending troops to Ukraine after Macron’s remarks, saying: “Poland does not plan to send its troops to the territory of Ukraine.”

But less than two weeks later Mr. Sikorski struck a different tone.

Paris:

French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday said France would not rest until the right to abortion, now protected by the French constitution in a world first, was guaranteed in the EU’s rights charter and around the globe.

Macron spoke as hot wax was sealed to a constitutional amendment to formerly inscribe the right to abortion.

The ceremony on International Woman’s Day came after parliament gave its final assent earlier this week.

“France today becomes the only country worldwide whose constitution explicitly protects the right to abortion in all circumstances,” Macron said in front of the justice ministry in the Place Vendome in central Paris.

But “we will not rest until this promise is held everywhere in the world.”

Abortion has been legal in France since 1975, but Macron last year pledged to better protect it after the US Supreme Court in 2022 overturned the United State’s half-century-old right to the procedure, leaving it up to individual states to decide.

In a historic vote, a rare congress of both houses of France’s parliament on Monday gave a green light towards making terminating a pregnancy a “guaranteed freedom” in the basic text, sparking celebration among feminists.

“Today is not the end of the story. It’s the start of a fight,” Macron said.

In Europe, “nothing is set in stone any longer and everything has to be defended,” he said, alluding to “reactionary forces” in other parts of the continent.

“This is why I wish for this guaranteed freedom to resort to an abortion to be inscribed in the European Union’s Charter of Fundamental Rights,” he said.

The sealing ceremony came a year to the day after the president promised to constitutionalise the right.

Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti turned the handle of a 300-kilo (660-pound) 19th century press to stamp a green wax seal on a ribbon attached to the official amendment document.

The sealing is a purely ceremonial procedure, and the amendment will only come into force after its publication in the “Journal Officiel” of new laws.

‘Serve as an example’

The constitutional change has been backed by most of the French public, even if some conservatives remain against it, arguing it’s not a constitutional issue.

No country had so far as clearly safeguarded the right to a pregnancy termination in its basic text, according to Leah Hoctor, of the Center for Reproductive Rights.

Some countries allude to the right, while others explicitly mention abortion, but only in certain circumstances.

Neil Datta, of the European Parliamentary Forum for Sexual and Reproductive Rights, said the French move sent a strong signal.

It “could give momentum to improving abortion legislation, just as the reversal of Roe v. Wade in the United States gave some to anti-abortion groups worldwide,” he said.

France “could serve as an example for progressives in all countries of Europe and beyond to define a course,” he said.

Even without amending the constitution, “they could… improve their legislation.”

National Assembly speaker Yael Braun-Pivet — the first woman in the post — read out the result of Monday’s historic vote, with 780 lawmakers in favour and 72 voting against.

More than 20 of her fellow women parliament speakers from around the world were also in Paris to attend the ceremony.

The last time the seal was used was in 2008, when lawmakers only just approved wide-sweeping amendments under former president Nicolas Sarkozy.

Those changes included limiting a president’s time in office to two terms, as well as better safeguards for press independence and freedom.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)