Xi Jinping
Chinese President Xi Jinping has arrived in France for a state visit hosted by Emmanuel Macron, during which the French leader will seek to press his counterpart on matters ranging from Ukraine to trade.
Xi’s arrival for the visit commemorating 60 years of diplomatic relations between France and China marked the beginning of his first European trip since 2019, which will also take him to Serbia and Hungary.
But Xi’s choice of France as the single major European power to visit underlines the relative warming in Sino-French relations since Macron made his state visit to China in April 2023 and underscores the French leader’s role as a European Union powerbroker.
Prime Minister Gabriel Attal greeted the leader of the one-party Communist state of more than 1.4 billion people, accompanied by his wife Peng Liyuan, with umbrellas at a gloomy Paris Orly airport.
Xi will hold a day of discussions in Paris on Monday, together with EU Commission leader Ursula von der Leyen, followed by a state banquet hosted by Macron at the Elysee.
Macron will take Xi to the Pyrenees mountains, where he used to spend time as a child, on Tuesday for a day of less public and more intimate conversations.
According to the Xinhua State news agency, Xi stated upon his arrival in Paris that the development of China-France relations had “injected stability and positive energy into the turbulent world” and that China was prepared to “enhance political mutual trust, build strategic consensus, and deepen exchanges” during the visit.
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