The Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris, flew Monday, November 8 in the evening for Paris, where she will spend five days, thus hoping to complete the reconciliation after a severe quarrel between Paris and Washington over a contract of Australian submarines.
The long duration of the visit, scheduled until November 13, underlines the White House’s desire to finally turn the page, after the announcement of a new defense alliance around the United States in the Pacific, which saw the blow of a huge contract for Australian submarines initially promised to France.
Before Kamala Harris, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan traveled to Paris to ease relations. President Joe Biden also met his counterpart Emmanuel Macron ten days ago at the French Embassy in Rome.
Strengthening cooperation in the space sector
The vice-president will be received on Wednesday by the French president at the Elysée Palace, to discuss in particular the “European security, the Indo-Pacific, global health”, according to the White House.
Strengthening cooperation between France and the United States in the space sector should also be on the menu for the visit, according to a joint press release issued on the occasion of the meeting between Joe Biden and Emmanuel Macron.
The vice-president, the first woman to hold this post in the history of the United States, will visit the same day with her husband, Doug Emhoff, to the American military cemetery of Suresnes, near Paris.
The 11th of November, “Veterans day” in the United States, Kamala Harris will participate in the ceremonies commemorating the armistice of 1918 ending the First World War. The same day, she will take part in the Paris Peace Forum, organized by Emmanuel Macron.
Other planned stages: a visit to the Institut Pasteur on Tuesday and, on Friday, a participation in the international conference on Libya. This major international meeting is supposed to prepare for the presidential election of December 24, which should be followed a month later by legislative elections. These polls are supposed to end a decade of chaos in the country after the fall of Muammar Gadhafi’s regime in 2011.