Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz discussed China on Thursday evening, during an informal dinner in Paris, to “align their positions” before the state visit to France by Chinese President Xi Jinping, it was claimed on Friday AFP in the entourage of the French head of state. According to this source, the Élysée had proposed to the German Chancellor to join the trilateral meeting scheduled for Monday between the French President, the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen and Xi Jinping.
“Upstream consultation between Germany and France is still very close”
The idea was to reissue the format of 2019, when Emmanuel Macron associated Chancellor Angela Merkel and Jean-Claude Juncker, Mrs. von der Leyen’s predecessor, with an exchange with his Chinese counterpart in Paris. But Olaf Scholz could not accept because he had a trip already planned to Latvia and Lithuania, it is argued on the French side. The agenda was in fact “set for a long time”, confirmed Friday in Berlin a spokesperson for the chancellery, Wolfgang Büchner, to the press, estimating that, as a result, the question of such German participation does not arise. was not really posed.
Thursday evening’s dinner between the French and German leaders, accompanied by their wives, at the Parisian brasserie La Rotonde where Emmanuel Macron is a regular, served as a framework for tuning in on Chinese issues. The dinner was presented as “private” by the Élysée. But several official photos of the two couples, all smiles, were published immediately on social networks, including one shared simultaneously by the leaders themselves.
“This conversation will allow the President of the Republic to approach the discussion with Xi Jinping in a European way,” said a member of his entourage. “The upstream consultation between Germany and France is always very close”, “it is a good exercise, and we will continue this Franco-German cooperation in this area, particularly on the theme of security”, declared for his part the spokesperson for the chancellor.
Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz spoke by videoconference before the chancellor’s visit to China in mid-April, and then discussed it on his return during a European summit in Brussels.