PARIS/LONDON (Reuters) – The state visit of King Charles of England to France, scheduled for Sunday to Wednesday, has been postponed due to protests against pension reform, a new opus of which is planned for Tuesday, said know Friday the Elysée and the British government.
The decision was taken around 10 a.m. during a telephone conversation between the head of state, who was in Brussels, and the 74-year-old sovereign who has just succeeded his mother Elizabeth II, who died in September.
“We would not be serious and we would lack a certain common sense” to propose to the king to come and make a state visit in this context, explained Emmanuel Macron during a press conference at the end of the European summit. “We must organize this when calm returns”.
At the end of the morning, a press release from the Elysée had announced the postponement, while King Charles and Queen Consort Camilla were to set foot on French soil on Sunday evening.
“Given the announcement yesterday of a new national day of action against pension reform on Tuesday March 28 in France, the visit of King Charles III (…) will be postponed”, could we read.
“It’s a shame,” a source in the French presidency told Reuters, saying the royal visit should be able to take place “in the coming months.”
“It is a great honor that the King did us to make his first State visit to France, it was a moment of reunion which followed the Franco-British summit [du 10 mars-NDLR] which was a great success”, added this source. “It’s a pity, it’s spoiled, but we would have talked about something other than Franco-British friendship during this visit.”
“Relations between the president and the king are excellent, our ties are unbreakable and we hope that this visit will be possible in the coming months,” she added.
“IT’S DANGEROUS WITH DEMONSTRATIONS”
A source familiar with the matter mentioned the presence of calls on social networks to disrupt the king’s visit. “So we didn’t want to take any risks,” she added.
A British government spokesman confirmed the postponement of the royal visit, speaking of a decision “taken with the agreement of all parties, after the French president asked the British government to postpone the visit”.
According to a source at Buckingham Palace, Charles III’s trip to Germany, scheduled for March 29 to 31, is however maintained.
The same source had indicated earlier this week that the demonstrations against the pension reform in France could have consequences on the organization of the king’s visit to the country.
In France, voices in the opposition had called for the cancellation of this visit because of the protest movement against the pension reform, which has grown since the government’s recourse to 49.3 to have the law adopted without a vote.
The postponement of this visit was immediately welcomed on social networks by members of La France Insoumise (LFI).
“The meeting of kings at Versailles dispersed by popular censorship”, commented on Twitter Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who felt that the time was not the right one to receive this visit.
“Since he no longer receives the King of England Charles III, Macron can receive the intersyndicale now?” Added LFI-Nupes deputy from Seine-Saint-Denis Alexis Corbière, in reference to the unions who have been asking in vain since. weeks to be received at the Elysée.
The program of Charles III’s state visit to France included a visit to the Musée d’Orsay, the Elysee Palace, a dinner at the Palace of Versailles and a ceremony at the Arc de Triomphe.
The king was to go to the Bordeaux region on Tuesday, where demonstrators set fire to the door of the town hall on Thursday evening.
In the streets of Paris, the postponement of the royal visit was commented on.
“The king is right, it’s dangerous with the demonstrations. And at the same time he must understand that the French must be heard,” Dorian Ginggen, 23, told Reuters. This is “not the time” either in the opinion of Claude Rio, 57 years old. “We are in the midst of a crisis, the people are outside, the police are in high demand and they don’t have time to deal with the king’s visit,” he said.
(Report Dominique Vidalon, with the contribution of Sachin Ravikumar and Michael Holden in London, written by Kate Entringer and Blandine Hénault, edited by Blandine Hénault)
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