President Joe Biden described France as the United States’s “first friend,” telling French President Emmanuel Macron during Biden’s first state dinner as commander in chief that he “couldn’t have had a better guest.”
“France was our first ally, first country to fly the American flag after our revolution,” Biden toasted Macron on the White House South Lawn. “And we still strive to build a world that’s worthy of our highest hopes and of our future, knowing that we can always, always count on one another as allies and friends.”
‘KISS AND MAKE UP’: BIDEN HOPES TENSIONS WITH FRANCE END WITH FIRST STATE VISIT
Macron responded that receiving Biden’s first invitation “means a lot for us,” despite the pair’s slight foreign policy differences and more strident contrasts regarding Biden’s new domestic-manufactured electric vehicle subsidies.
“We come from the same values,” Macron said in a candlelit glass pavilion decorated with the fleur-de-lis and the countries’ respective national flowers, the rose and iris. “In a lot of places today, these principles are at risk or challenged, even in our societies, in our democracies. A lot of people just want to jeopardize or revert on these principles, challenge and contest elections, and so on.”
But he added against an image of the Statue of Liberty: “We stand together, shoulder to shoulder … to say at the same time, ‘We the People,’ and, ‘Liberté, égalité, fraternité.'”
The dinner menu for guests, such as U.S. entertainer John Legend and French designer Christian Louboutin, included Maine lobster and caviar, followed by American artisanal cheeses and an orange chiffon cake, all washed down with a selection of Californian wines.
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New Orleans singer Jon Batiste was booked as the headline post-dinner entertainment, along with “The President’s Own” United States Marine Band.
