Bidens greet French President Emmanuel Macron, wife Brigitte at White House
President Biden and first girl Jill Biden welcomed French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife to the White Property on Thursday for the to start with condition pay a visit to hosted by the US administration — with essential intercontinental difficulties together with the war in Ukraine, China’s aggression and world-wide climate policy on the agenda.
Biden, 80, and Macron, 44, were being scheduled to hold a joint press meeting at 11:45 a.m., with a Point out Evening meal to abide by in the night.
“France is our oldest ally, our unwavering lover in freedom’s bring about,” Biden reported during the welcoming ceremony with Macron standing at his aspect.
“Our historical past has been shaped by the braveness of the girls and males who crossed the Atlantic carrying in their hearts a flame of liberty. Now that flame burns much more brightly than at any time, and the alliance amongst our two nations stays essential to our mutual defense,” he ongoing.
The president reported the world stands at an “inflection point” and the options designed in the decades forward “will determine the program of our planet for many years to come,” adding that the US could not ask for a “better partner in this do the job than France.”
Macron said the two nations around the world, allies for much more than 200 many years, are “sisters in their combat for freedom.”
“The spirit of fraternity should help us to develop an agenda of ambition and hope as our two countries share the identical faith in freedom, in democratic values, in empowerment via training and get the job done, and in development via science and expertise,” the French chief stated.
This is Macron’s second point out visit to Washington because using place of work in 2017. The French president met with previous President Donald Trump in November 2018.
Biden and a contingent of administration officials gathered on the South Garden to greet Macron and his wife Brigitte as a band performed the French nationwide anthem “The Marseillaise” followed by the “Star-Spangled Banner.”
Between the US delegation have been Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Vice President Kamala Harris, as well as hundreds of people and White Property staffers waving French and US flags.
The two presidents have satisfied before given that Biden took business in January 2021, most just lately at the G20 summit in Indonesia very last month, and have spoken to every single other numerous periods on the phone.
Their final 1-on-one particular meeting took put for the duration of the United Nations Basic Assembly in September.
As aspect of their welcome, the Macrons introduced a CD of the unique soundtrack of the 1966 film “Un Homme et une Femme” for the president and the very first woman, paying out tribute to the movie the Bidens went to see on their first day.
The Macrons also gave Jill Biden, who teaches English at the Northern Virginia Neighborhood Higher education, the classic French novel “Madame Bovary” by Gustave Flaubert and a assortment of performs by Albert Camus, like the novels “The Plague” and “The Tumble.”
The Bidens presented the Macrons with a custom made mirror built by an American home furniture maker from wooden that had fallen on the White Residence grounds.
It is a reproduction of a mirror from the White Residence selection that hangs in the West Wing.
The president also gave his French counterpart a custom made vinyl history assortment of great American musicians and an archival facsimile print of Thomas Edison’s 1877 patent for the American phonograph.