2023-09-20 18:38:00
The monarch arrived shortly following 8:00 p.m. in the courtyard of the lair of the kings of France, accompanied by Queen Camilla. After a photo session on the red carpet, the couple was then able to join the other guests for an evening set as the highlight of a three-day visit, their first to France as king.
In the audience, the legendary Rolling Stones singer Mick Jagger, the actor Hugh Grant, the actress Charlotte Gainsbourg, the boss of the luxury group LVMH Bernard Arnault and the former footballer Patrick Vieira will be entitled to a royal menu: lobster blue cheese, Bresse poultry and rose macaroon, prepared by starred chefs and served in Sèvres porcelain.
Charles III on the Champs Elysées for his first state visit to France, thousands of people gathered (PHOTOS)
As a little earlier at the foot of the Arc de Triomphe, the greeting between the two couples in matching evening outfits was warm, Brigitte Macron once once more sending a kiss to Camilla, a gesture unimaginable with Elizabeth II.
The choice of Versailles is a nod to the king’s mother, who was invited to lunch in the same sumptuous setting in 1957 and returned to Versailles in 1972.
This dinner follows a first meeting in the followingnoon on the Champs-Elysées, for a ceremony to rekindle the flame in front of the tomb of the Unknown Soldier, before heading down the “most famous avenue in the world” to aboard a DS escorted by 136 horses from the Republican Guard.
All in a relaxed atmosphere, like the few pats on the back addressed by Emmanuel Macron to Charles III.
Mini crowd bath for the royal couple
The general public was kept away from the ceremony by a large security system, to the great dismay of Apolline Pilorget, who came with her nine-year-old daughter. “We thought we might get a little closer,” she lamented.
A Saint Andrew University sweater on her back, Anne-Sophie Hafner, 44, waits a little further down with her two children, their heads adorned with a plastic crown.
Charles III and Emmanuel Macron then had an interview at the Elysée before walking to the nearby residence of the United Kingdom ambassador to plant an oak tree. The opportunity for a mini-crowd, with a few “long live the king” thrown out here and there.
Will this splendor be damaging to the image of Emmanuel Macron, six months following the pension crisis and in a context of high inflation?
By inviting Charles III to Versailles, the French president is in any case following in the footsteps of General de Gaulle, who had made the castle a veritable diplomatic calling card. It also sends a strong signal to the United Kingdom.
In March, this official trip, which was to be Charles’ first abroad as king, had to be canceled at the last minute, to the great dismay of Emmanuel Macron, once morest a backdrop of violent demonstrations once morest pension reform. .
Six months later, calm has returned and it is time once more for the “Entente Cordiale”, or Franco-British concord, the 120th anniversary of which will be celebrated next April.
Post-Brexit diplomacy
During a summit in March, the French President and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak allowed a “reconnection” between the two capitals following several stormy years when Boris Johnson resided in Downing Street, on Brexit, fishing or migrants.
Keen to leave nothing to chance, Emmanuel Macron also received on Tuesday the leader of the British opposition, Keir Starmer, favorite in the polls for the elections scheduled for early 2025.
The king, who intends to establish his image internationally a year following his accession to the throne, will begin the most political part of his visit on Thursday with a speech from the Senate gallery, a first for a British sovereign.
He will also highlight a subject that is close to his heart, the environment, during a round table on global warming which he will close with President Macron at the National Museum of Natural History then on Friday in Bordeaux, in a region hit hard by fires in 2022 and which has many Britons.
Some 8,000 police officers and gendarmes are mobilized on Wednesday and up to 12,000 on Friday, when the king’s visit will also coincide with that of Pope Francis in Marseille.
King Charles III’s relationship with his extended family
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