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White House announces Dec. 1 state visit for France's Macron
French President Emmanuel Macron will travel to Washington in early December for the first state visit of President Joe Biden’s tenure, an occasion marked by pomp and pageantry that is designed to celebrate relations between the United States and its closest allies, the Associated Press reported.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre announced the visit Monday, saying it will "underscore the deep and enduring relationship with France, our oldest ally."
It will be the first time the White House has hosted a world leader for a state visit since the coronavirus outbreak.
The Dec. 1 visit, following the U.S. midterm elections and the Thanksgiving holiday, will be the second state visit for Macron, who was first elected to lead his country in May 2017 and won a second term earlier this year. Macron also had a state visit during the Trump years.
Last year, relations between the US and France hit a rough patch when a dispute erupted between the NATO partners over Washington's establishment of a Indo-Pacific security alliance with Britain and Australia.
After the announcement of the deal, which was born out of a new security agreement between the U.S., Australia and Britain, France briefly recalled its ambassador to Washington, Philippe Etienne, to Paris.
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Biden also sought to patch thing up with France by eventually acknowledging to Macron that his administration had been “clumsy” in how it handled the issue.
US Vice President Kamala Harris travelled to Paris in November 2021 to mend fences.
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