After the submarine crisis, serial meetings and symbolic gestures between Kamala Harris and Emmanuel Macron in Paris – archyde

The place and the interlocutor change, but the double objective remains: to continue to purge the abscess created in France by the recent alliance between the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom (Aukus), in order to revive a good once and for all cooperation between Paris and Washington. After meeting Joe Biden in Rome, twelve days ago, Emmanuel Macron received the Vice-President of the United States, Kamala Harris, Wednesday, November 10 at the Elysee Palace. “Very happy to be in Paris”, just launched the American leader to journalists gathered in the courtyard, after being greeted without effusion on the steps of the palace by the French president.

The meeting was a new step in the work of reconciliation between the French executive and the Biden administration, since the strong anger triggered in Paris by the Aukus affair. The announcement, in mid-September, of this Anglo-Saxon defense pact in the vast Indo-Pacific region not only resulted in the termination of the contract for the sale to Australia of twelve conventional French submarines, in favor of American ships. nuclear powered. But it also generated an unprecedented moment of mistrust between France and its three allied nations, accused of “duplicity”. Distrust that the visit of Kamala Harris seeks precisely to reduce, after the words of contrition, without excuse, pronounced by Joe Biden in Rome.

In the Italian capital, on the sidelines of the recent G20 summit, the American president had judged “Clumsy” the way made to the French. He also provided support for his counterpart’s projects on European defense, in addition to NATO, the continent’s role in the Indo-Pacific and the strengthening of counterterrorism cooperation in the Sahel. Scalded, Mr. Macron had remained on his guard, anxious to obtain ” proofs ” of American goodwill.

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In Paris, the trip of the vice-president should last five days – M^me Harris arrived Tuesday morning, with her husband, and will leave on Saturday. His program therefore combines symbolic gestures and occasions for meetings with Mr. Macron. After a first visit to the Institut Pasteur, to meet American and French researchers working on Covid-19, the vice-president went to the American cemetery of Suresnes (Hauts-de-Seine) on Wednesday, where they are buried 1,500 soldiers who died in the First World War. History to underline, beyond the homage, the commitment of the United States alongside France in the dark hours of the European continent.

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