On Friday, President Trump will be a VIP guest of French President Emmanuel Macron during the Bastille Day celebrations in Paris. If the relationship between Macron and Trump started cold, it appears to have warmed up, taking a strategic and pragmatic turn.
On Thursday, the two will dine at “le Jules Vernes,” which has played host to a James Bond movie and some of the most successful marriage proposals (many by American citizens). Located on Eiffel Tower’s second floor, facing the Seine River and the emblematic Trocadero esplanade, Alain Ducasse’s Michelin star restaurant is an ideal spot. But let’s assume that Thursday evening, as champagne glasses tinkle around them, the atmosphere could between Macron and Trump will be slightly less romantic and a little more diplomatic.
Will the French president’s snake-charmer seduction work on Trump? Hard to predict. During their meeting last week in Hamburg for the G20 summit, they showed each other signs of sympathy, if not fellowship. But is the brave (or insolent) midnight declaration against Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement forgotten?
In France, public opinion seems to keep its distance from Trump. “It is not President Donald Trump’s visit that is set to be put forward, it is the United States of America that a hundred years ago came to help liberate France,” justified the French government’s spokesman, Christophe Castaner. He added that the invitation had a political dimension: Macron wishing to “reach out” to Trump, in order to “bring him back into the circle” and “make sure” that he is “not isolated.”
Very gentle of you, Mr. Bond.
However, the Bastille Day ceremony will showcase American soldiers celebrating the centenary of their involvement in the Great War as well as the French forces engaged against the Islamic State. The last time an American president attended Bastille Day celebrations in France was 1989, for the bicentenary of the French Revolution. That year, President George H.W. Bush, invited by French President François Mitterrand, attended the ceremonies.
This year, a total of 3,765 men will parade between the Arc de Triomphe and Place de la Concorde, where the presidents will observe.
During this long military parade, they have a lot to discuss: the Syrian and the Sahel situation, bilateral economic trade, possibly also their relationships with Russia. But that’s not all: The two freshly elected presidents are facing many other common issues.
Although there is a great disparity in their domestic media coverage, where one is seen as the next James Bond and the other as the villain, both created a huge surprise by emerging from their elections victorious. Both were never elected before, both could not count on the support of a political party at first, and both were elected on the expectation of creating strong economic growth.
For Macron, as for Trump, his first months in office saw skeletons emerging from the closet. The man Macron trusted most, who was literally worshipped by the party activists, was suspected of personal enrichment. A couple weeks later, among three other ministers also embroiled in scandals, he left Macron’s government and took the role of majority whip in the French National Assembly.
Again, a few days ago, the Paris prosecutor’s office opened a formal judicial inquiry into suspected irregularities in the organization of a costly event at the 2016 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas that Macron headlined as the French economy minister. This investigation is putting high pressure on the French labor minister — and possibly the president himself — as they pursue difficult reforms of French labor laws.
James Bond (Macron) can’t lecture Dr. No (Trump) about ongoing investigations.
Macron showed his ability to juggle uncertainty. Trump showed his appetite to create uncertainty. But their mutual interest right now is to make this diplomatic tour shine as a glorious mirror. They need to promote a newborn friendship to show Europe and its Russian neighbor that they are not divided and that the French-American relationship is strong. They need to make France, America, and the planet as a whole great again.
Jean de Nicolay (@juannite) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is a consultant in lobbying and public affairs. He was a member of several French ministers’ cabinets until 2012.
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