PARIS — Welcoming Vice President Kamala Harris to the Elysee Palace, French President Emmanuel Macron stuck to the script.
“I can tell you French people are extremely proud to have you here,” Macron said during remarks before a bilateral meeting Wednesday evening. Shouted questions from reporters about America’s effort to reconcile its part in a bruising multibillion-dollar defense contract dispute went unanswered, as did a question from the Washington Examiner about whether there was a role for the United States in the Belarus migration crisis along the Polish border.
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Whereas French officials just weeks ago described the rupture as “a stab in the back” and likened it to something former President Donald Trump would do, Macron appeared to take the position that the matter had now been shelved, describing his meeting with President Joe Biden in Rome last week as “very fruitful.”
It “paved the way” for future cooperation between the two countries, he said. “We do share the view that we are at the beginning of a new era, and our cooperation is absolutely critical.”
Harris called it a “new era” and said she thought the two were on the same page. A French news camera was fixed on the vice president through the entirety of the introductory remarks at the top of the meeting, including as Macron spoke.
Patrice Anato, an elected representative for La République En Marche!, the political party founded by Macron, told the Washington Examiner on Wednesday that Harris’s visit “shows a clear engagement between the countries and a strong bond.”
France and the U.S. are aligned in the fight against terrorism, upholding human rights, and strengthening shared economic interests. Anato likened the submarine dispute to one among family. “Even with your brother, you might disagree,” he said.
Harris’s role isn’t clear-cut.
She is the “apprentice president, and Macron is taking stock of this,” Jean-Eric Branaa, a political analyst, told France Info.
“The reality is that Kamala Harris has no role. She’s the United States vice president — constitutionally, she doesn’t exist,” he said. “She’s just there to wait for the president to step aside by whatever means, death included.”
Harris does hold a tiebreaking vote in the 50-50 Senate, giving Democrats control of the chamber and making the enactment of Biden’s agenda mathematically possible. But her potential as a successor to the president takes on an outsize importance in this administration. Biden, already the oldest man ever to hold the office, will turn 79 later this month. It is not clear whether he plans to run for reelection in 2024.
If political leaders in Paris are ready to move on from the recent diplomatic row with the U.S., the French public seemed less giving. Reactions on the street ranged from puzzlement to hostility to Harris’s visit. At home, the cadences of the vice president’s speech received more attention than any of her remarks.
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Still, the French government has its reasons for being happy Harris came to Paris. Macron invited her “because he is betting on the future. In that sense, they are on the same page,” according to Branaa, a lecturer at Université Panthéon-Assas Paris II and researcher at its Thucydide Center. “Macron is preparing to campaign for reelection. Harris is a heartbeat away from the presidency.”
Macron “bet” on this when he invited her, Branaa said.
