Macron

The new government, led by Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu, must present a 2026 draft budget on Monday.

French President Emmanuel Macron has unveiled a new government after holding marathon talks with newly re-appointed Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu ahead of a fast-approaching deadline to present next year’s budget to parliament.

In Lecornu’s new cabinet, Jean-Noel Barrot remains as foreign minister, while outgoing Labour Minister Catherine Vautrin takes on the defence portfolio, according to a lineup published by the president’s office on Sunday.

In a post on X, Lecornu wrote: “A mission-based government has been appointed to draw up a budget for France before the end of the year.”

“I would like to thank the women and men who have freely committed themselves to this government, putting aside personal and partisan interests. Only one thing matters: the interests of the country.”

Macron reinstated Lecornu late on Friday, just four days after the premier had resigned and as his first government collapsed, leading to outrage and pledges from opponents to topple any new cabinet at the first chance.

The former defence minister was tasked with assembling a government to present a 2026 draft budget on Monday, giving parliament the constitutionally required 70 days to scrutinise the plan before the year’s end.

But the right-wing Republicans (LR), a key political ally, complicated matters on Saturday by announcing that the party would not take part in the new government but only cooperate on a “bill-by-bill” basis.

Other allied and rival parties wrestled all weekend over whether to join Lecornu’s new government or vote to topple it.

The premier had pledged to work with all mainstream political movements and to select cabinet members who are “not imprisoned by parties”.

A Macron loyalist, Lecornu agreed after he had quit to stay on for two extra days to talk to all political parties.

He told the French weekly La Tribune that he had resigned “because the conditions were no longer met” and said that he would do so again if that remained the case.

The French president, facing the worst domestic crisis since the 2017 start of his presidency, has yet to address the public since Lecornu’s first government fell.

On Monday, Macron is due to travel to Egypt to support a Gaza ceasefire deal brokered by the United States, a trip that could delay the presentation of the draft budget.

Lecornu’s reappointment comes as France faces political deadlock and a parliamentary impasse over an austerity budget against a backdrop of climbing public debt.

The country faces pressure from the European Union to rein in its deficit and debt, with the fight over cost-cutting measures toppling Lecornu’s two predecessors.

Lecornu has pledged to do “everything possible” to give France a budget by the end of the year, saying that restoring the public finances was “a priority” for the future.

But he is under pressure from parties across the political spectrum, including the Socialists, who have threatened to topple his government unless he backs away from the 2023 pension reform that pushed the retirement age from 62 to 64.

Lecornu said on Saturday that “all debates are possible” over the pension reforms, and that his “only ambition is to get out of this situation that is painful for everyone”.

If Lecornu fails to secure parliamentary support, France would need emergency stopgap legislation to authorise spending from January 1 until a full budget is adopted.

French politics has been deadlocked ever since Macron gambled last year on snap polls that he hoped would consolidate power, but that instead ended in a hung Parliament and more seats for the far right.

Four days after he resigned as prime minister, Lecornu is returning to the post.

French President Emmanuel Macron has re-appointed Sebastien Lecornu as prime minister.

Lecornu, who had stepped down from the same post on Monday, just weeks after taking office, returns in a surprise move after days of negotiations aimed at ending a political impasse in the country.

Lecornu is tasked him with forming a new cabinet, Macron’s office said in a statement on Friday.

“I accept – out of duty – the mission entrusted to me by the President of the Republic to do everything possible to provide France with a budget by the end of the year and to address the daily life issues of our fellow citizens,” Lecornu wrote on X.

“We must put an end to this political crisis that exasperates the French people and to this instability that is harmful to France’s image and its interests.”

Speaking shortly after the appointment was announced, Al Jazeera’s Natacha Butler, reporting from Paris, said that “everything has been so unpredictable that nobody knew what to expect.”

“This is just the latest twist in what has been a dramatic week in French politics.”

Macron had met with leaders of all political parties apart from the far-right National Rally (RN) and the far left France Unbowed party earlier on Friday at the presidential palace, informed sources told the AFP news agency.

Shortly before the meeting, the presidency in a statement called on all parties to recognise the “moment of collective responsibility”, appearing to imply he could dissolve parliament if they did not rally behind his preferred candidate.

Lecornu’s re-appointment demonstrates that “clearly Macron has run out of options,” said Butler.

Following the meeting, “we heard party leaders … saying that they felt Emmanuel Macron was disconnected from what they wanted to put across on the agenda, that he didn’t understand their concerns and they felt ignored, as if the meetings had made the situation even worse,” our correspondent added.

First appointed a month ago, Lecornu, 39, had come under increasing pressure in recent weeks as he struggled to pass a budget through the fractured French Parliament amid a debt crisis.

In naming Lecornu, Macron, 47, risks the wrath of his political rivals, who have argued that the best way out of the country’s deepest political crisis in decades was for Macron to either hold snap parliamentary elections or resign.

French politics has been deadlocked ever since Macron gambled last year on snap polls that he hoped would consolidate power – but ended instead in a hung parliament and more seats for the far right.

French President Emmanuel Macron urged full support for the US plan to end the Gaza war, calling for a permanent ceasefire, release of all captives, and humanitarian access. Macron, however, blasted expanding West Bank settlements, which he said threaten Palestinian statehood and regional peace.

The announcement came after last-ditch talks by outgoing premier Sebastien Lecornu failed to find a solution to crisis.

French President Emmanuel Macron will name a new prime minister within the next 48 hours, his office has said, in the latest effort to chart a path out of the worst political crisis of his presidency.

The announcement on Wednesday followed two days of last-ditch talks with party leaders by outgoing Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu in a bid to break the country’s political deadlock, after his cabinet lineup, unveiled on Sunday, was rejected by allies and rivals alike.

The Elysee presidential office said in a statement that Lecornu’s discussions with various parties had concluded that a majority of lawmakers were not in favour of parliament being dissolved for early elections, and that there was “a platform for stability” that could make it possible for a budget to be passed by the year’s end.

“On this basis, the President of the Republic will appoint a Prime Minister within the next 48 hours,” said the statement.

Macron thanked Lecornu for his work since Monday to resolve the crisis, the office said.

Ahead of the announcement, it had been unclear whether Macron would opt to reappoint Lecornu or name a replacement, call snap elections or even resign himself.

Escalating crisis

In September, Macron tasked Lecornu – the fifth prime minister he has installed in less than two years – with forming a government after the divided French parliament toppled his predecessor, Francois Bayrou, over a much-maligned austerity budget intended to tackle a debt crisis.

But despite Lecornu’s promises of a departure from Bayrou’s approach, his cabinet, unveiled on Sunday evening, immediately drew fierce criticism from both the right and left for containing many of the same faces from the previous administration.

Lecornu resigned the following day, making his 14-hour administration the shortest in modern French history, but then added to the confusion when he announced he would hold 48 hours of talks at Macron’s request to try to agree on a new cabinet.

The move prompted renewed criticism of the increasingly isolated Macron, including from former premier Edouard Philippe, once a close ally of the president, who was one of many calling for presidential elections to resolve the crisis.

‘I tried everything’

Speaking to French TV earlier Wednesday, Lecornu said he had told Macron that the prospects of snap elections had diminished as there was a majority in the lower house opposed to the dissolution of parliament.

“I tried everything,” he said of his efforts to find a deal to end the crisis. “This evening, my mission is finished.”

He suggested that a more technocratic and less political administration could follow, saying that any new cabinet appointments should not harbour ambitions to stand in the next presidential elections.

He also pushed back against calls for snap presidential polls ahead of the scheduled 2027 elections, saying it was “not the time to change the president”.

“Let’s not make the French believe that it’s the president who votes the budget,” he said.

The French parliament has been sharply divided since Macron, in response to surging gains by the far right, announced snap elections last year, resulting in a hung parliament.

With no governing majority, the parliament has been unable to approve a crucial budget to tackle France’s growing debt crisis. Meanwhile, proposed spending cuts have prompted nationwide protests, while opposition parties – who are calling for early elections and are pledging to block any new cabinet – have seized momentum.

French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu has plunged France further into a political deadlock after he resigned just hours after forming a cabinet as Paris struggles to plug its mounting debt.

Lecornu – whose tenure, which ended on Monday, was the shortest in modern French history – blamed opposition politicians for refusing to cooperate after a key coalition partner pulled support for his cabinet. He joins a growing list of French prime ministers who since last year have taken the job only to resign a short time later.

Opposition parties in the divided French Parliament have increased pressure on President Emmanuel Macron to hold snap elections or even to resign – as have politicians and allies in his own camp. Analysts said Macron now appears to be caught on the back foot since Lecornu was widely seen as his “final bullet” to solve the protracted political crisis.

Here’s what to know about Lecornu’s resignation and why French politics are unstable:

What happened?

Lecornu and his ministers resigned on Monday morning after he had named a new government the previous day.

Lecornu took up his office on September 9 after his predecessor Francois Bayrou stepped down. His tenure lasted 27 days, the shortest since 1958 when France’s Fifth Republic began. He was France’s fifth prime minister since 2022 and its third since Macron called snap elections in June last year. He was formerly the minister of the armed forces from 2022 until last month.

In an emotional television address on Monday morning, Lecornu blamed political leaders from different ideological blocs for refusing to compromise to solve the crisis.

“The conditions were not fulfilled for me to carry out my function as prime minister,” the 39-year-old Macron ally said, adding that things could have worked if some had been “selfless”.

“One must always put one’s country before one’s party,” he said.

Macron, in what appeared to be a final attempt at stability, then asked Lecornu on Monday evening to stay on until Wednesday as the head of a caretaker government and to hold “final negotiations” with political parties in the interests of stability. It’s unclear what exactly these talks might entail or whether Lecornu might still emerge as prime minister at the end of them.

In a statement late on Monday on X, Lecornu said he accepted Macron’s proposal “to hold final discussions with the political forces for the stability of the country”. He added that he will report back to Macron by Wednesday evening and the president can then “draw his own conclusions”.

France expert Jacob Ross of the Hamburg-based German Council on Foreign Relations said the caretaker agreement was a “bizarre” one, even if legal, and underscored Macron’s desperation to project some form of control even as his options appear to be running out.

“For me, this really secures the narrative that Lecornu was Macron’s last bullet” to solve the current crisis, Ross said.

Why did Lecornu quit?

France has a deeply divided parliament that makes consensus difficult. Far-right and left-wing parties together hold more than 320 seats in the 577-seat lower house and abhor each other. Macron’s centrist and conservative bloc, which has tried to win conditional support from the left and right to rule, holds 210. No party has an overall majority.

After forming his government on Sunday, Lecornu immediately lost the support of the right-wing Republicans party (LR), which holds 50 seats, because of his choice for defence minister — former Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire.

LR President Bruno Retailleau, who was set to be interior minister in the government, announced on X on Sunday evening that his party was pulling out of the coalition because it did not “reflect the promised break” from pro-Macron ideologies initially assured by Lecornu. He said later on the broadcaster TF1 that Lecornu did not tell him Le Maire would be part of the government.

Le Maire is seen by many critics as representing Macron’s pro-privatisation economic policies and not the radical shifts that Lecornu promised in the three weeks of negotiations before forming a cabinet. Others, meanwhile, hold Le Maire responsible for overseeing the large public deficit during his term as finance minister from 2017 to 2024.

Lecornu’s exit affected the markets with stocks of prominent French companies dropping sharply by about 2 percent on the CAC 40, France’s benchmark stock index, although it has somewhat recovered since then.

Ministers who were supposed to form the government will now remain as caretakers until further notice. “I despair of this circus where everyone plays their role but no one takes responsibility,” Agnes Pannier-Runacher, who was set to be reappointed as ecology minister, said in a post on X.

Why has France’s politics become unstable?

The issues go back to the snap elections in June 2024, which produced a hung parliament consisting of Macron’s centrist bloc as well as left and far-right blocs. With Macron failing to achieve a majority and with parliament consisting of such an uncomfortable coalition, his government has faced hurdles in passing policies.

Added to the political impasse are Macron’s attempts to push through deeply unpopular austerity measures to close widening deficits that resulted from COVID-19-era spending.

Bayrou, who was prime minister from December to September, proposed budget cuts in July to ease what he called France’s “life-threatening” debt burden and cut public spending by 44 billion euros ($52bn) in 2026. His plans included a freeze on pensions, higher taxes for healthcare and scrapping two holidays to generate economic activity. However, they were met with widespread furore in parliament and on the streets and resulted in waves of protests across France. Parliament eventually rejected Bayrou’s proposals in September, ending his nine-month run.

Lecornu, meanwhile, had abandoned the holiday clause and promised to target lifelong privileges enjoyed by ministers. He had negotiated with each bloc for three weeks, hoping to avoid a vote of no confidence. By Monday, it was clear that his approach had not worked.

Public anger has increasingly also been directed at Macron since he first imposed higher fuel taxes in 2018 – and later scrapped them after large-scale protests. In April 2023, Macron again drew popular anger when he forced through pension reforms that raised the retirement age from 62 to 64. That policy was not reversed despite large protests led by trade unions. At present, the French president’s popularity in opinion polls has sunk to record lows.

“There is a numb anger in the voter base, a sense that politicians are playing around, and a huge part of the French electorate is disgusted,” Ross said. “My fear is that it is a potentially promising starting position to call for new elections but also a referendum on topics like migration and even France staying on in the European Union.”

What’s next for Macron?

Macron, due to be in office until April 2027, is increasingly under pressure. Opposition groups are capitalising on Lecornu’s resignation, and his own allies are publicly distancing themselves from him in a bid to boost their standing in the next elections, analysts said.

The anti-immigrant and anti-EU National Rally (RN) on Monday urged Macron to hold elections or resign. “This raises a question for the president of the republic: Can he continue to resist the legislature dissolution? We have reached the end of the road,” party leader Marine Le Pen told reporters on Monday. “There is no other solution. The only wise course of action in these circumstances is to return to the polls.” The RN is expected to gain more seats if elections are held.

Similar calls came from the left with members of the far-left France Unbowed party asking for Macron’s exit.

The president, who has not made a public statement but was spotted walking alone along the River Seine on Monday, according to the Reuters news agency, is also isolated within his own camp. Gabriel Attal, prime minister from January to September 2024 and head of Macron’s Renaissance party, said on the TF1 television channel that he no longer understood Macron’s decisions and it was “time to try something else”.

Edouard Phillipe, a key ally of Macron and prime minister from 2017 to 2020, also said Macron should appoint a caretaker prime minister and then call for an early presidential election while speaking on France’s RTL Radio. Phillipe, who is running in the 2027 elections under his centrist Horizons party, slammed what he said is a “distressing political game”.

France needs to “emerge in an orderly and dignified manner from a political crisis that is harming the country”, Philippe said. “Another 18 months of this is far too long.”

“People are seriously speculating that he might step down, and his allies are seeing him as political [dead] weight,” Ross said.

Macron, he added, has three options: elect yet another prime minister who might still struggle to gain parliamentary consensus, resign or more likely call for snap parliamentary elections – which could still fail to produce a majority government. All three options would come with their own challenges for the president, he noted. Macron has repeatedly ruled out stepping down.

The crisis, Ross said, is similarly affecting the president’s political standing on the international front as head of the EU’s second most populous economy.

Sebastien Lecornu to hold two days of talks to try to shore up cross-party support for his collapsed government.

France’s outgoing prime minister has launched a last-gasp bid to secure cross-party support for his government and chart a path out of the country’s deepening political crisis.

The frantic effort, which began on Tuesday, will see Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu seeking two days of talks with parliamentary figures, just a day after he tendered his resignation over the rejection of his proposed cabinet.

That snub, which came from allies and rivals alike, and Lecornu’s announcement that he would quit after just 27 days, have stoked the political crisis bubbling beneath President Emmanuel Macron since the 2024 snap elections.

Now, in a move that has caused confusion among lawmakers and the public, Lecornu has accepted a request from Macron that he hold talks to try to find a way out of the deadlock.

Lecornu, whose 14-hour administration was the shortest in modern French history, was scheduled on Tuesday morning to meet several members of the conservative Republicans and the centre-right Renaissance parties – the so-called “common platform” – to see if they could agree on a new cabinet.

But voices on both sides have reacted with shock, and suggestions that it is now time for Macron himself to make way.

Macron has tasked Lecornu with “conducting final negotiations by Wednesday evening to define a platform of action and stability for the country”, according to the Elysee Palace.

It was not immediately clear what Lecornu’s task would entail. France’s constitution allows Macron to appoint another prime minister, or to reappoint Lecornu – the fifth PM he has installed in less than two years – should he wish.

Politicians of all stripes have expressed surprise over the move. Some said it appeared to be an effort by Macron to buy time.

Others insisted that it means an early presidential election is needed.

Unsurprisingly, Jordan Bardella, leader of the far-right National Rally, was among them. He said he believed parliament should be dissolved, with parliamentary or early presidential elections to follow.

However, Edouard Philippe, once a close ally of Macron who served as prime minister, also told French media that he was in favour of a presidential vote.

Another former prime minister under Macron, Gabriel Attal, expressed bafflement, saying, “Like many French people, I do not understand the president’s decisions any more.”

Political chaos

Macron tasked Lecornu with forming a government in early September after the fractured French parliament toppled his predecessor, Francois Bayrou, over an austerity budget that prompted nationwide strikes in recent weeks.

Despite Lecornu’s promises to “break” with Bayrou’s strategies, his new cabinet, unveiled on Sunday evening, immediately drew criticism for containing many of the same faces from the previous government, with opponents complaining that it contained too many right-wing representatives or not enough.

The French parliament has been sharply divided since Macron, in response to gains made by the far right, announced snap elections last year, resulting in a hung parliament and now nearly two years of political crisis.

The 47-year-old centrist president has repeatedly said he will see out his second term, which is due to end in 2027.

French President Emmanuel Macron has named his defence minister and close ally, Sebastien Lecornu, as the new prime minister after Prime Minister Francois Bayrou resigned after losing a confidence vote.

Lecornu, 39, the fifth prime minister in less than two years, has major challenges ahead, including resolving a deepening political crisis as protests loom in the coming days.

“The President of the Republic has entrusted me with the task of building a government with a clear direction: the defence of our independence and power, the service of the French people, and political and institutional stability for the unity of the country,” the incoming prime minister said.

The French parliament – the National Assembly – on Monday voted to remove Bayrou over his proposed $51bn in budget cuts to address the country’s debt crisis. The formal handover of power between Bayrou and Lecornu is due to take place on Wednesday.

Macron’s decision to choose Lecornu, analysts say, is an indication that he intends to continue on with a minority government that supports his pro-business economic reform agenda. In the 577-member National Assembly, the left bloc, which has opposed Macron’s pro-business policy, has most seats but not enough to form a government.

The appointment of Lecornu, a one-time conservative, risks alienating France’s centre-left Socialist Party, which leaves Macron’s government depending on Marine Le Pen and the far-right National Rally for support in parliament.

“Regardless of Sebastien Lecornu’s personal qualities, his nomination is a slap in the face of parliament,” Philippe Brun, the Socialist lawmaker who has been in charge of budget negotiations, told Reuters.

However, Jordan Bardella, seen as Le Pen’s protege, seemed willing to give Lecornu a chance.

“We will judge, without illusion, the new prime minister on his merits,” he said, adding that the party still kept strict “red lines”.

Bayrou’s downfall and France’s instability

France, the European Union’s second-biggest economy, seems on the brink of yet another period of instability.

The immediate reason for Bayrou’s fall was his budget proposal for next year. His unpopular 44-billion-euro ($51bn) deficit-reduction plan, including freezing most welfare spending and scrapping two public holidays, has been widely rejected by parliamentarians.

The French budget deficit is now nearly 169 billion euros ($198bn), or 5.8 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP), well above the 3 percent limit set by the European Union for countries using the euro. Investors worry that France’s persistent deficits will cause ever-higher debt ratios and undermine its credit score.

Before Monday’s vote, Bayrou warned lawmakers: “You have the power to bring down the government, but you do not have the power to erase reality. Reality will remain relentless: expenses will continue to rise, and the burden of debt, already unbearable, will grow heavier and more costly.”

The prime minister’s proposals came on top of Macron’s unpopular 2023 move to raise France’s retirement age by two years to 64. At the time, the president argued that excessive pension payments were a drag on the country’s finances.

Protests expected around France

As Macron grapples with the collapse of his fourth government in less than two years, French citizens are planning to take to the streets this week in “Block Everything” protests.

The movement, which lacks centralised leadership and planning, is threatening widespread disruption this week.

“The public authorities and the government have betrayed us so much that I’m not sure they can really meet the expectations of the people,” Louise Nechin, a left-wing activist in Paris, told Reuters.

The protests have drawn comparisons with 2018’s “yellow vest” demonstrations, with protesters at the time setting fire to makeshift barricades and vehicles.

The November 2018 protests, which began over planned hikes in diesel taxes, widened into an uprising against Macron’s policies and became the biggest challenge to his presidency at the time.

PARIS — Legislators toppled France’s government in a confidence vote on Monday, a new crisis for Europe’s second-largest economy that obliges President Emmanuel Macron to search for a fourth prime minister in 12 months.

Prime Minister François Bayrou was ousted overwhelmingly in a 364-194 vote against him. Bayrou paid the price for what appeared to be a staggering political miscalculation, gambling that lawmakers would back his view that France must slash public spending to repair its debts. Instead, they seized on the vote that Bayrou called to gang up against the 74-year-old centrist who was appointed by Macron last December.

The demise of Bayrou’s short-lived minority government — now constitutionally obliged to submit its resignation to Macron after just under nine months in office — heralds renewed uncertainty and a risk of prolonged legislative deadlock for France as it wrestles with pressing challenges, including budget difficulties and, internationally, wars in Ukraine and Gaza and the shifting priorities of President Trump.

Hunt for a replacement

Although Macron had two weeks to prepare for the government collapse after Bayrou announced in August that he’d seek a confidence vote on his unpopular budget plans, no clear front-runner has emerged as a likely successor.

After Gabriel Attal’s departure as prime minister in September 2024, followed by former Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier’s ouster by parliament in December and Bayrou now ousted, too, Macron again faces an arduous hunt for a replacement to build consensus in the parliament’s lower house that is stacked with opponents of the French leader.

As president, Macron will continue to hold substantial powers over foreign policy and European affairs and remain the commander in chief of the nuclear-armed military. But domestically, the 47-year-old president’s ambitions are increasingly facing ruin.

The root of the latest government collapse was Macron’s stunning decision to dissolve the National Assembly in June 2024, triggering a legislative election that the French leader hoped would strengthen the hand of his pro-European centrist alliance. But the gamble backfired, producing a splintered legislature with no dominant political bloc in power for the first time in France’s modern republic.

Shorn of a workable majority, his minority governments have since lurched from crisis to crisis, surviving on the whim of opposing political blocs on the left and far-right that don’t have enough seats to govern themselves but can, when they team up, topple Macron’s choices.

Bayrou’s gamble

Bayrou, too, rolled the dice by calling the confidence vote, a decision that quickly backfired on the political veteran as left-wing and far-right legislators seized the opportunity to oust his government, seeking to increase pressure on Macron.

Bayrou conceded in his last speech as prime minister to the National Assembly that putting his fate on the line was risky. But he said that France’s debt crisis compelled him to seek legislative support for remedies, in the face of what he called “a silent, underground, invisible, and unbearable hemorrhage” of excessive public borrowing.

“The greatest risk was to not take one, to let things go on without changing anything, to go on doing politics as usual,” he said. “Submission to debt is like submission through military force. Dominated by weapons, or dominated by our creditors, because of a debt that is submerging us — in both cases, we lose our freedom.”

At the end of the first quarter of 2025, France’s public debt stood at 3.346 trillion euros, or 114% of gross domestic product. Debt servicing remains a major budget item, accounting for around 7% of state spending.

Le Pen wants new election

The 577-seat National Assembly interrupted its summer recess to convene for the extraordinary session of high political drama. Macron’s opponents worked to leverage the crisis to push for a new legislative election, pressure for Macron’s departure or jostle for posts in the next government.

Far-right leader Marine Le Pen called for Macron to again dissolve the National Assembly, seemingly confident that her National Rally party and its allies would win a majority in another snap legislative election, positioning it to form a new government.

“A big country like France cannot live with a paper government, especially in a tormented and dangerous world,” she said in the National Assembly.

Pressing problems

In a last-ditch effort to save his job before the vote, Bayrou warned that France is risking its future and its influence by racking up trillions in state debts that are “submerging us,” pleading for belt-tightening.

Macron’s chosen successor will operate in the same precarious environment and face the same pressing budget problems that dogged Bayrou and his predecessors. Macron himself has vowed to stay in office until the end of his term, but risks becoming a lame duck domestically if political paralysis continues.

Under the French political system, the prime minister is appointed by the president, accountable to the parliament and is in charge of implementing domestic policy, notably economic measures.

Arguing that sharp cuts are needed to repair public finances, Bayrou had proposed to cut $51 billion in spending in 2026, after France’s deficit hit 5.8% of GDP last year, way above the official EU target of 3%.

He painted a dramatic picture of the European Union’s No. 2 economy becoming beholden to foreign creditors and addicted to living beyond its means. He castigated opponents in the National Assembly who teamed up against his minority government despite their own sharp political differences.

“You have the power to overthrow the government, but you do not have the power to erase reality,” Bayrou said. “Reality will remain inexorable. Spending will continue to increase and the debt burden — already unbearable — will grow heavier and more costly.”

Leicester writes for the Associated Press.

The National Assembly votes to bring down government led by PM Francois Bayou over its plans to cut about $52bn to reduce the country’s debt.

France’s Prime Minister Francois Bayrou has lost a confidence vote in Parliament, hours after warning that the country was facing “life-threatening” debt, deepening a political crisis and handing President Emmanuel Macron the task of finding a fifth prime minister in less than two years.

Bayrou, who has been in office for nine months, will tender his resignation on Tuesday, his office said.

The National Assembly voted on Monday to bring down the Bayrou-led government over its plans to cut about 44 billion euros ($52bn) to reduce the country’s debt.

Bayrou is the sixth prime minister under President Macron since the head of state was first elected in 2017. Bayrou’s ousting would leave the French leader with a new domestic headache at a time when he is leading diplomatic efforts on the Ukraine war.

More soon.

French President Emmanuel Macron has said that there is “no doubt” the United States will support security efforts in Ukraine after 26 European countries pledged to send troops to the war-battered country after fighting ends.

Macron spoke after a meeting of the so-called coalition of the willing in Paris on Thursday that was followed by a video call to United States President Donald Trump aiming to get a clearer sense of Washington’s commitment to Ukrainian security, viewed as essential to any peacekeeping efforts.

The French president said that US support for the “reassurance force” would be finalised “in the coming days” and that Washington would collaborate with European countries in imposing new sanctions if Russia were to continue to refuse a deal to end the three-and-a-half-year war.

The summit in Paris included European leaders, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff in attendance, and was part of a push to show Europe’s ability to act independently after mixed signals from Washington since Trump entered office in January.

Reporting from Paris, Al Jazeera’s Natacha Butler said that Macron had indicated the call with Trump was “positive”, with further news to come on what the US might have to offer in terms of security guarantees.

“Until now, that has been very vague indeed,” she said, noting that Trump had previously said that US troops would not be sent to Ukraine.

Experts say that any European operation would hinge on the US providing intelligence support and airpower in countries outside Ukraine.

‘Concrete step’

The guarantees by the 26 countries in the coalition of the willing – largely European, with the inclusion of Canada, Australia and Japan – are expected to include ramped-up training for the Ukrainian army and deployment of troops by some European states.

“We have today 26 countries who have formally committed … to deploy as ‘reassurance force’ troops in Ukraine, or be present on the ground, in the sea, or in the air,” Macron said alongside Zelenskyy.

He specified that troops would not be deployed “on the front line” and would aim to “prevent any new major aggression”.

Zelensky hailed the move: “I think that today, for the first time in a long time, this is the first such serious concrete step,” he said.

During the summit, United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer said it was necessary “to go even further to apply pressure on Putin to secure a cessation of hostilities”, a Downing Street spokeswoman said.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz also urged more pressure, but remained cautious about the scope of involvement.

“Germany will decide on military involvement at the appropriate time once the framework conditions have been clarified,” a government spokesman said after the summit.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s office said her country would not send troops to Ukraine, but it could help monitor any potential peace deal.

Peace talks stall

Countries met to discuss Ukraine’s security amid growing concern that Russian President Vladimir Putin is currently showing no interest in a peace accord, with alarm intensifying after his high-profile visit to Beijing this week.

Al Jazeera’s Butler said that while Zelenskyy was “very pleased that things seemed to be moving forward”, he had said Putin had “no intention of coming to the table for any form of peace talks”.

Putin had earlier said he would be willing to meet Zelenskyy in Moscow, a call that many viewed as a call for capitulation.

Trump, who has not yet managed to broker talks between Zelenskyy and Putin, warned this week that the Russian leader would “see things happen” if he was unhappy with Moscow’s next steps.

Putin has said Moscow is willing to “resolve all our tasks militarily” in the absence of a peace deal acceptable to the Kremlin. He has also indicated he does not want to see European troops in post-war Ukraine,

“It’s not for them to decide,” NATO chief Mark Rutte shot back Thursday. “I think we really have to stop making Putin too powerful.”

Trump ‘dissatisfied’

Following the video call with Trump, Zelenskyy said the US president was “very dissatisfied” that European countries were still buying Russian oil, pointing the finger specifically at “Hungary and Slovakia”.

The European Union imposed a ban on most oil imports from Russia in 2022, but it made an exception for imports to Slovakia and Hungary to give the landlocked central European countries time to find alternative oil supplies.

Ukraine has targeted Russia’s Druzhba oil pipeline, which carries Russian oil to Slovakia and Hungary, throughout the conflict. Both nations have asked the European Commission to act against Ukraine’s attacks.

A White House official cited by news agency Reuters confirmed that Trump had “emphasised” that European countries must stop purchasing Russian oil, adding that Russia received 1.1 billion euros ($1.28bn) in fuel sales from the EU in one year.

“The president also emphasised that European leaders must place economic pressure on China for funding Russia’s war efforts,” the official said.

The European Commission has proposed legislation to phase out EU imports of Russian oil and gas by January 1, 2028.

The Trump administration has also imposed tariffs on India for buying Russian oil in efforts to pressure the Kremlin to end the war. But the US has been accused of double standards for sparing China – the largest buyer of Russian crude.

French leader responds in diplomatic row that erupted after Macron said France would recognise a Palestinian state.

President Emmanuel Macron has rebuked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for accusing him of fuelling anti-Semitism, calling the comments an “offence to France as a whole”.

The French leader responded to his Israeli counterpart in a letter published on Tuesday in several newspapers, in which he said Netanyahu’s recent accusations aimed at Macron were “unacceptable” and warned that the battle against anti-Semitism “must not be weaponised”.

“Accusations of inaction in the face of a scourge that we are fighting with everything in our power are unacceptable and are an offence to France as a whole,” Macron wrote in the letter.

“The fight against antisemitism must not be weaponised and will not fuel any discord between Israel and France.”

The French leader also appealed to Netanyahu to bring the “murderous and illegal permanent war” in Gaza to an end, saying it was “causing indignity for your country and placing your people in a deadlock”.

France and Israel have been embroiled in a diplomatic spat since last week, when Netanyahu accused Macron of fuelling “the anti-Semitic fire” in France by planning to recognise Palestinian statehood.

The accusation was contained in a letter which claimed that anti-Semitism had surged in France since Macron’s recent announcement that he would recognise Palestine as a state at a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly next month.

The French president’s office responded by labelling the remarks “abject” and “erroneous”.

“This is a time for seriousness and responsibility, not for conflation and manipulation,” the French presidency said last week, adding that violence against the Jewish community was “intolerable” and asserting that France “protects and will always protect its Jewish citizens”.

The row has widened to draw in Israel’s chief ally, the United States, after Washington’s ambassador to France, Charles Kushner, published an open letter to Macron in The Wall Street Journal on Sunday, echoing the allegation that France was failing to take sufficient action against anti-Semitism.

Kushner, the father of Trump’s son-in-law, was summoned to the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs over the accusations, which France said were “unacceptable”, but the US embassy’s charge d’affaires went in his place, as Kushner was absent.

Published on
30/07/2025 – 18:23 GMT+2

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French President Emmanuel Macron has called on the EU Commission to rebalance EU’s trade relationship with the US, particularly in the services sector, just days after a deal was reached between EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and US President Donald Trump.

“To be free, one must be feared. We haven’t been feared enough,” Macron said during a meeting of the French council of ministers, French media reported, calling for “relentless efforts to rebalance trade, particularly in the services sector.”

“This is not the end of the story, and we will not stop here,” the French president added, as the EU Commission is still negotiating exemptions to the 15% US tariffs on EU imports agreed on 27 July.

Since the beginning of the tariff war with the US, France has consistently favoured a hardline approach, brandishing the threat of the anti-coercion instrument — an EU tool that allows foreign companies to be denied access to public procurement, licenses, or intellectual property rights.

The tool would enable the EU to target US services, where the bloc runs a trade deficit with the US, unlike in goods.

Countermeasures

The EU has also adopted a package of countermeasures worth €95 billion targeting US products, but these were suspended until 4 August. The Commission is now awaiting a US executive order confirming that a 15% blanket tariff will apply to imports of EU goods as of 1 August.

“Of course the measures are there,” an EU official said, adding: “They have been approved by the member states. So if there was a need, we could always bring them back on Tuesday [4 August]. But that is not the assumption from which we start this next phase in transatlantic relations.”

The French President acknowledged that negotiations with the US had been difficult, and welcomed exemptions secured for the aerospace sector, considered strategic for Paris. France also hopes that the Commission will manage to negotiate an exemption for wine and spirits, which represent France’s leading export market to the US.

“We are continuing to negotiate with the Americans so that, if possible, spirits, perhaps wine, and other sectors can be exempted. It’s a work in progress,” French Economy Minister Éric Lombard told French radio on Wednesday.

On top of aircraft, Von der Leyen on Sunday announced that zero-for-zero tariffs will apply to certain chemicals, generic drugs, semiconductor-making equipment, some agricultural products (but with the exclusion of all sensitive products like beef, rice, ethanol, sugar or poultry), some natural resources and critical raw materials.

DEVELOPING STORYDEVELOPING STORY,

President Emmanuel Macron says France will formally recognise the State of Palestine at the UN General Assembly.

France will recognise Palestine as a state, President Emmanuel Macron has said.

Macron said in a post on X on Thursday that he will formalise the decision at the United Nations General Assembly in September.

“The urgent thing today is that the war in Gaza stops and the civilian population is saved,” he wrote.

“In keeping with its historic commitment to a just and lasting peace in the Middle East, I have decided that France will recognize the State of Palestine,” Macron wrote.

“I will solemnly announce this at the United Nations General Assembly
in September this year,” he added.

This is a developing story…

PARIS — A lawyer for France ‘s first couple said they’ll be seeking “substantial” damages from U.S. conservative influencer Candace Owens if she persists with claims that President Emmanuel Macron ‘s wife, Brigitte, is a man.

The lawyer, Tom Clare, said in an interview with CNN that a defamation suit filed Wednesday for the Macrons in a Delaware court was “really a last resort” after a fruitless yearlong effort to engage with Owens and requests that she “do the right thing: tell the truth, stop spreading these lies.”

“Each time we’ve done that, she mocked the Macrons, she mocked our efforts to set the record straight,” Clare said. “Enough is enough, it was time to hold her accountable.”

The Macrons have been married since 2007, and Emmanuel Macron has been France’s president since 2017.

In a YouTube video, Owens called the suit an “obvious and desperate public relations strategy,” and said the first lady is “a very goofy man.”

Owens is a right-leaning political commentator whose YouTube channel has about 4.5 million subscribers. In 2024, she was denied a visa from New Zealand and Australia, citing remarks in which she denied Nazi medical experimentation on Jews in concentration camps during World War II.

The 219-page complaint against Owens lays out “extensive evidence” that Brigitte Macron “was born a woman, she’s always been a woman,” the couple’s attorney said.

“We’ll put forward our damage claim at trial, but if she continues to double down between now and the time of trial, it will be a substantial award,” he said.

In Paris, the presidential office had no immediate comment.

In France, too, the presidential couple has for years been dogged by conspiracy theories that Brigitte was born as a man named Jean-Michel Trogneux, who supposedly then took the name Brigitte as a transgender woman. Jean-Michel Trogneux is, in fact, Brigitte’s brother.

Last September, Brigitte and Jean-Michel Trogneux won a defamation suit against two women who were sentenced by a Paris court to fines and damages for spreading the claims about the first lady online. A Paris appeals court overturned the ruling earlier this month. Brigitte and her brother have since turned to France’s highest court to appeal that decision, according to French media.

The Macrons first met at the high school where he was a student and she was a teacher. Brigitte Macron was then Brigitte Auzière, a married mother of three children.

Macron, 47, is serving his second and last term as president. The first lady celebrated her 72nd birthday in April.

Macron moved to Paris for his last year of high school, but promised to marry Brigitte. She later moved to the French capital to join him and divorced before they finally married.

Their relationship came under the spotlight in May when video images showed Brigitte pushing her husband away with both hands on his face before they disembarked from a plane on a tour of Southeast Asia.

Macron later dismissed the incident as play-fighting, telling reporters that “we are squabbling and, rather, joking with my wife,” and that it had been overblown into “a sort of geo-planetary catastrophe.”

Watching the president of France and the prime minister close up was to see two men under the cosh, behind in the opinion polls and fighting for what they see as the essence of their political creed.

It boils down to this – how do Sir Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron make the case for what they see as the virtues of patience, nuance, subtleties and trade-offs in an era of growing impatience at the perceived repeated failures of those in high office?

There were just two lecterns and two speakers at the news conference the leaders hosted, but two other parties hovered in the air.

Reform UK and National Rally, the party of Jordan Bardella and Marine Le Pen, were never mentioned explicitly. Nor were their leaders. But they were repeatedly mentioned implicitly.

The two parties on either side of the Channel are not the same, but they have the same capacity to frighten the life out of those in power now.

They do it with an anti-establishment zeal, a knack of communicating in plain language and at a time of disillusionment with the traditional political classes. Quite the combination.

“Whilst we have been working hard to get a returns agreement, others have been simply taking pictures of the problem,” the prime minister told us.

Whoever could he possibly have been thinking of?

“That is where the politics is. We have to show that pragmatic politics is the way to deliver the results that matter for both of our peoples,” he added, to ensure people weren’t seduced by what he called “the politics of easy answers”.

Reform leader Nigel Farage had spent the morning on a boat in the English Channel in the company of a camera from GB News and regards this new deal between Paris and London as a humiliation for the UK.

He says the UK should abandon the European Convention on Human Rights and makes a wider argument that the country can escape the funk many feel it is trapped in by embracing a party willing to be unorthodox, noisy and pick a few fights. Why not, after the last few years, goes the argument.

President Macron, confronting similar arguments back home from National Rally, made similar arguments to the prime minister.

There was a need, the president argued, to recognise “the complexity of the world” and to avoid what he saw as the “temptation” for some of those he described as “populists”.

As I wrote here the other day, this is the latest evidence we are seeing of the prime minister’s shifting argument – a sharpening public critique of Farage and what Sir Keir believes will be the choice at the next election: one of the two of them in Downing Street.

And an outsized part of the argument between the two of them, today and in the coming years, will be over small boat crossings.

New polling for Portland Communications suggests 26% of Labour’s voters in last year’s general election who have since switched to Reform would be much more likely to come back to Labour if the number of small boat crossings fell.

The same polling suggests that eight out of ten Reform-leaning voters say that after one year, Labour has had enough time to improve things across the piece.

And nearly half of all voters see Nigel Farage as the leader who most represents change.

This is an insight into the challenge and, potentially, opportunity for the prime minister.

Hoping for patience in an era of the opposite, but arguing his opponent is offering a false promise.

Hoping the levers of government can, in time, deliver. Let’s see.

One final thought.

On two separate occasions this week I have spoken privately to senior figures in both the Labour Party and the Conservative Party, who, unprompted, offered near identical reflections about how the next few years may pan out.

It won’t surprise you that both the people I spoke to don’t want to see Reform UK win a general election.

Both acknowledged that it was a real possibility, but both had a deep worry beyond that.

They both reflected that many in the electorate concluded last year that the Conservatives had failed and many in the electorate are concluding this year, or may soon conclude, that Labour are failing too.

Reform could deliver in a way its predecessors never managed.

But what happens, pondered the two people I spoke to, if Nigel Farage was to win and he too was subsequently deemed to have failed?

Where, they wonder, and in what political direction would the country turn in next?

French President Emmanuel Macron’s three-day state visit to the United Kingdom has moved from the genteel royal pomp and ceremony to the harder edges of the political realm as his hosts are expected to press for new measures to curb undocumented immigration in crunch talks.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer was set to push Macron to do more to stop refugee and migrant crossings across the English Channel as the two leaders met Wednesday at 10 Downing Street.

The number of refugees and migrants arriving on England’s southern coast via small boats from northern France is a major political issue for the Labour government, which has seen the far-right Reform UK party make significant political gains with a hardline anti-immigration platform.

The talks come on Macron’s second day of his visit to the UK, which began with a warm welcome from King Charles III and members of the royal family and a lavish banquet at Windsor Castle.

It’s the first state visit by a French president to the UK since Nicolas Sarkozy in 2008 and the first by a European Union head of state since Brexit was made official in 2020. Macron’s trip came at the invitation of King Charles III.

‘One in-one out’ deal not favoured by EU

Macron addressed the British parliament on Tuesday, promising to deliver on measures to cut the number of people crossing the English Channel, describing the issue as a “burden” to both countries. He also said that France and the UK had a “shared responsibility to address irregular migration with humanity, solidarity and fairness”.

Britain hopes to strike a “one in, one out” deal to send small boat refugees and migrants back to the continent, in exchange for the UK accepting asylum seekers in Europe who have a British link, the domestic Press Association news agency reported.

France has previously refused to sign such an agreement, saying the UK should negotiate an arrangement with all European Union countries.

“This deal is far from being finished because there is a lot of opposition from certain European nations, which are usually the port of entry for people seeking to come to Europe, places like Spain, Malta, Italy, Greece and Cyprus,” said Al Jazeera’s Milena Veselinovic, reporting from London.

“That is because under EU law, in theory, France could just move on the people they receive from Britain and onto those countries, the first port of entry countries, to claim asylum there. So Keir Starmer doesn’t only need to convince President Macron of this deal, but he also has quite significant stumbling blocks when it comes to convincing other European nations.”

In parliament Nigel Farage, leader of Reform UK, challenged Starmer to “say to the French president we will not accept undocumented males across the English Channel”.

There has been increasing frustration in the UK over funding for France to prevent refugees and migrants setting off and a law that prevents police intercepting boats while in the water close to shore.

“We will only provide funding that delivers for our priorities,” Starmer told parliament, adding that Britain had persuaded the French “to review their laws and tactics on the north coast to take more effective action”.

“I’ll be discussing this at meetings with President Macron,” he added.

After he took power a year ago, Starmer promised to “smash the gangs”, getting thousands of people onto the small boats – only to see numbers rise to record levels.

More than 21,000 people have crossed from northern France to southeast England in basic vessels this year, on a perilous journey.

The Macrons began the second day of their visit by paying their respects at the tomb of the late Queen Elizabeth II at Windsor’s St George’s Chapel.

Macron then discussed biodiversity issues with the king during a stroll in the castle grounds before he bade farewell to his host and headed to central London.

At Tuesday evening’s banquet, Charles used a speech to about 160 guests – including royals, Starmer and music icons Elton John and Mick Jagger – to warn that the two nations’ alliance was as crucial as ever amid a “multitude of complex threats”.

Macron had also said in his address to parliament that “Britain and France were too dependent on the US and China, and that they really need to take joint decisions on defence and security even though Britain has left the European Union, as geographically it is part of Europe,” said Veselinovic.

Charles concluded by toasting a new UK-France “entente… no longer just cordiale, but now amicale”, prompting Macron to laud “this entente amicale that unites our two fraternal peoples in an unwavering alliance”.

Macron is due to visit the British Museum to formally announce the loan of the famous Bayeux Tapestry depicting the 1066 Norman conquest of England, allowing the 11th-century masterpiece to return for the first time in more than 900 years. London, in exchange, will loan Paris Anglo-Saxon and Viking treasures.

French President Emmanuel Macron has called for British support to recognise the state of Palestine and help defend Ukraine as he arrived in the United Kingdom for the first state visit by a European leader since Brexit.

Macron, in a rare address to both houses of the British parliament on Tuesday, celebrated the return of closer ties between France and the UK, and said the two countries must work together to end “excessive dependencies” on the United States and China.

The French president’s three-day trip came at the invitation of King Charles III. Macron was earlier greeted by the royal family, including heir-to-the-throne Prince William and his wife, Princess Catherine, before they travelled in horse-drawn carriages to Windsor Castle.

Macron then set out to parliament where he said the two countries needed to come together to strengthen Europe, including on defence, immigration, climate and trade.

“The United Kingdom and France must once again show the world that our alliance can make all the difference,” the French president said in English. “The only way to overcome the challenges we have, the challenges of our times, will be to go together hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder.”

Macron also promised that European countries would “never abandon Ukraine” in its war against invading Russian forces, while demanding an unconditional ceasefire in Gaza.

He then urged the UK to work together with France on recognising a Palestinian state, calling it “the only path to peace”.

“With Gaza in ruin and West Bank being on a daily basis attacked, the perspective of a Palestinian state has never been put at risk as it is,” Macron said. “And this is why this solution of the two states and the recognition of the State of Palestine is… the only way to build peace and stability for all in the whole region.”

He listed the geopolitical threats France and the UK face, and argued they should also be wary of the “excessive dependencies of both the US and China”, saying they needed to “de-risk our economies and our societies from this dual dependency”.

Macron went on to set out the opportunities of a closer union, saying they should make it easier for students, researchers and artists to live in each other’s countries, and seek to work together on artificial intelligence and to protect children online.

The speech symbolised the improvement in relations sought by UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s centre-left Labour Party, as part of a broader reset of ties with European allies following the rancour over London’s departure from the European Union.

‘Entente Amicale’

Later on Tuesday evening, King Charles hosted a banquet for the Macrons at Windsor Castle, with 160 guests, including politicians, diplomats and celebrities such as Mick Jagger and Elton John.

Charles used his speech at the opulent state banquet to christen a new era of friendly relations, upgrading the “entente cordiale” – an alliance dating from 1904 that ended centuries of military rivalries – to an “entente amicale”.

“As we dine here in this ancient place, redolent with our shared history, allow me to propose a toast to France and to our new entente. An entente not only past and present, but for the future – and no longer just cordiale, but now amicale,” the king said.

The UK and France marked the three-day visit with an announcement that French nuclear energy utility EDF would invest 1.1 billion pounds ($1.5bn) in a nuclear power project in eastern England.

The two also said France would lend the UK the Bayeux Tapestry, allowing the 11th-century masterpiece to return for the first time in more than 900 years, in exchange for London loaning Paris Anglo-Saxon and Viking treasures.

Politics will take centre stage on Wednesday, when Macron sits down for talks with Starmer on migration, defence and investment.

Despite tensions over post-Brexit ties and how to stop asylum seekers from crossing the English Channel in small boats, the UK and France have been working closely to create a planned military force to support Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire with Russia.

The two leaders will dial in to a meeting of the coalition on Thursday “to discuss stepping up support for Ukraine and further increasing pressure on Russia”, Starmer’s office confirmed on Monday.

They will speak to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, according to the French presidency.

Starmer is hoping the UK’s support for Ukraine will help persuade Macron to take a different approach to stopping people smuggling, with London wanting to try out an asylum seekers’ returns deal.

This would involve the UK deporting one asylum seeker to France in exchange for another with a legitimate case to be in the country. A record number of asylum seekers have arrived in the UK on small boats in the first six months of this year. Starmer, whose party is trailing Nigel Farage’s right-wing Reform UK party in the polls, is under pressure to find a solution.

France has previously refused to sign such an agreement, saying the UK should negotiate an arrangement with all EU countries.

AN expert has analysed the awkward moment Brigitte Macron “refuses” her husband.

It comes several months after she appeared to slap Emmanuel as they prepared to disembark a plane in Vietnam.

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Emmanuel and his wife Brigitte have arrived in the UK ahead of tonight’s state banquet at Windsor Castle.

However, footage of the pair arriving suggests there could be tension between them according to body language expert Judi James.

After Emmanuel is safely on solid ground, he turns around to offer his arm to his wife as she descends the stairs from the plane.

Yet Brigitte refuses Emmanuel’s gesture, leaving him awkwardly holding his arm in mid-air.

The pair then begin to greet members of the Royal Family who have been awaiting their arrival.

Judi said: “Macron appeared determined to take a joyfully tactile approach to everyone he met today, with exception of his wife.

She added that Brigitte looked “less charmed by her husband’s attempts at a more tactile approach, refusing his offer of a hand to help as she stepped down from the plane”.

While Brigitte does smile at her husband once she’s by his side, the couple quickly begin greeting their hosts.

Emmanuel leads, greeting Prince William first.

Judi said: “His greeting ritual for William was almost intimate enough to suggest he was family.

“He clasped William’s hand for several long seconds, using his left hand to perform a volley of add-on pats and clasps as he did so, each one suggesting close bonding and familiarity.”

After placing his hand over William’s, he then moves it to the prince’s lower arm.

This “intensified the familiarity signals” according to Judi, as Emmanuel moves his hand above William’s elbow before moving it back down to the lower arm.

Emmanuel then moves on to greet Kate, while Brigitte in turn greets William.

In a “creakingly out of date ritual” according to Judi, Emmanuel leans down to kiss the back of Kate’s hand.

Judi said: “This gesture looks gallant but it leaves the woman being kissed with little option but to giggle prettily.”

While Emmanuel leaned down to kiss Kate’s hand, Charles instead raises Brigitte’s hand to his lips, as he “gazes adoringly” Judi said.

Calling back to the rumoured Vietnam slap, Judi said: “Was this the hand she shoved her husband with back in Vietnam?

“If so, Charles was clearly busy charming it into submission.”

In a similarly familial gesture, Emmanuel went on to pat Charles’ upper arm “in a gesture of macho unity”.

The procession precedes tonight’s state banquet in which 160 guests will dine at Windsor Castle to celebrate the relationship between France and Britain.

Princess Kate and Prince William will both be in attendance for the fabulous event.

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The French president says his US counterpart’s Greenland takeover threats are not something allies do.

French President Emmanuel Macron has arrived in Greenland with a “message of solidarity and friendship” from Europe and castigated United States President Donald Trump’s repeated threats that he intends to take control of the strategic autonomous Danish territory as not “something to be done between allies”.

Macron reiterated his condemnation on Sunday at the Arctic island’s Nuuk airport, where he was greeted by Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Greenland Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen.

“It’s important to show that Denmark and Europe are committed to this territory, which has very high strategic stakes and whose territorial integrity must be respected,” Macron added.

“It means a lot to me … to convey a message of friendship and solidarity from France and the European Union to help this territory face the different challenges: economic development, education, as well as the consequences of climate change,” he continued.

‘Not for sale’

Since returning to the office in January, Trump has repeatedly said the US needs Greenland, a strategically located territory at the crossroads of the Atlantic and the Arctic, for security reasons and has not ruled out taking the territory by force.

However, Denmark has vehemently stressed that Greenland “is not for sale”.

Macron, who is the first foreign head of state to visit Greenland since Trump’s threats, said in a speech last week at the United Nations Ocean Conference that Greenland and the deep seas were not “up for grabs”.

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth appeared to acknowledge that the Pentagon had developed plans to take over Greenland and Panama by force, if necessary, last week.

The Wall Street Journal reported last month that several high-ranking officials under the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, had been ordered to investigate Greenland’s independence movement and US resource extraction in the territory.

But in Greenland, polls indicate that the vast majority of the country’s 57,000 inhabitants may want to become independent from Denmark, but they do not want to join the US.

While Greenland is not part of the EU, it is on the bloc’s list of Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs).

During Macron’s six-hour visit before he travels to Canada for a Group of Seven meeting that Trump is also expected to attend, he plans to discuss Arctic security and ways to include Greenland in “European action” to contribute to its development while “respecting its sovereignty”, his office said.

Following talks with Frederiksen and Nielsen, Macron is also set to visit a glacier to witness the effects of global warming.