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President Joe Biden will be fêted by a close ally Saturday as French President Emmanuel Macron hosts his US counterpart for an official state visit in Paris.
The trappings of the visit come as the US has strengthened its alliance with its oldest ally amid Russia’s war in Ukraine – but some signs of fissures have emerged over the conflict in the Middle East.
Macron will welcome the president and first lady Jill Biden with a formal welcome ceremony beginning at Paris landmark L’Arc de Triomphe. There will be a parade procession to the Elysée Palace, followed by a working lunch. The leaders will deliver statements to the press but are not expected to hold a formal news conference.
In the evening, the Macrons welcome the Bidens to the famed Musée D’Orsay for a state dinner.
Macron is returning the favor to Biden, who hosted the French president for a state visit at the White House in December 2022, the administration’s first.
There will be much for the leaders to discuss on Saturday.
Macron, like other US allies, has privately questioned the future of US leadership in the world should Biden lose the November election to former President Donald Trump, with whom he had a more complicated relationship.
Biden has frequently recalled meeting with world leaders at a G7 meeting early in his term where he pronounced, “America is back.”
“And the French leader looked at me, and he said, ‘For how long?’” Biden said to laughter at a March fundraiser in New York City. “It wasn’t humorous. He said – he was serious, ‘For how long?’”
Biden has often pointed to those anxieties among his counterparts as he makes the case for a second term, though Europe has also had to contend with its own rising tide of populism.
On the topic of Ukraine, both countries have touted their support for the war-torn country. Biden on Friday announced a new $225 billion aid package while apologizing to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky for the congressional delay.
And for his part, Macron has been one of the key leaders in Europe’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. France has doubled its defense budget, announced it would surpass NATO’s 2% defense spending benchmark and restarted domestic production of critical military inputs.
On the Israel-Hamas war, Macron endorsed a ceasefire proposal laid out by Biden, writing in a post on X last week, “The war in Gaza must end. We support the US proposal for a durable peace.”
But France broke with Western allies last month as the foreign ministry expressed support for the International Criminal Court’s decision to seek an arrest warrant for the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas leader in Gaza Yahya Sinwar. Biden had called the ICC’s decision “outrageous.”
The US-French relationship, however, has dramatically improved from a low point early in the Biden administration. In September 2021, Macron took the extraordinary step of recalling his ambassador to Washington over a US-Australia submarine deal that blindsided the French and cost them a multi-billion dollar defense contract.
“They have a warm and close relationship,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters Friday evening. “One of the things the president respects and admires about President Macron is he’s as honest and forthright as President Joe Biden is. That’s what he wants to see in a friend, in an ally.”
Biden and Macron are also expected to discuss deepening maritime cooperation in the Indo-Pacific, with an announcement expected to build maritime law enforcement capacity and increase US-France technical cooperation on port security in the region, Kirby said.
“I think you’ll see that that that we are as close as we have ever been with our French allies,” Kirby added.
CNN’s Kayla Tausche and Xiaofei Xu contributed to this report
