Macron and China’s Xi break protocol for one-on-one visit to the Pyrenees

Advisers to the French president described the Pyrenees trip as breaking with protocol for a chance for one-on-one chats with Xi, without scores of aides, in mountains dear to Macron as the birthplace of his maternal grandmother.

One of Macron's main objectives is to convince Xi to reduce the trade imbalance between the two regions, with better access for European firms in China and fewer subsidies for Chinese exporters.

Macron and his wife, Brigitte, who greeted Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan, at the airport in windy weather, took them to lunch high up in the mountains.

The two couples, who travelled on separate flights from Paris, also took separate cars to the mountains and arrived amid thick fog - missing out on the view.

After watching traditional dancers perform under the snowy peaks, they ate locally grown ham, lamb, cheese and blueberry pie. Xi said he would give the ham some publicity and also praised the cheese.

Macron gifted Xi a woollen blanket made in the Pyrenees, a Tour de France jersey and armagnac from the nearby southwestern region - a brandy which is at risk of Chinese trade sanctions.

Macron has a history of trying to establish outside-of-protocol personal relationships with his counterparts, even those he strongly disagrees with, in often not very successful bids to obtain more from them.

This time, Xi has said he would welcome more high-level talks on trade frictions, but also denied there was a Chinese "overcapacity problem", casting doubts on how much progress could eventually be achieved.

French and Chinese companies concluded some agreements on Monday ranging from energy, finance and transport on the sidelines of Xi's visit, but most were agreements to cooperate or renewed commitments to work together, and there were no significant deals.

In a sign of some progress, China will allow imports of pig origin protein feed as well as pork offal from France effective immediately, according to statements from Chinese customs and the French farm ministry.

European hopes of an Airbus plane order to coincide with Xi's visit appear to have been dashed, with the two sides agreeing only to expand co-operation.

A European diplomat said Xi was the "winner" of the visit, having "cemented his image as the 'ruler of the world' where westerners are begging him to solve European problems in Ukraine".

Hosuk Lee-Makiyama, director of the Brussels-based ECIPE think tank, said the visit was possibly less about making concrete progress on trade than creating some policy space they might need if Donald Trump returns to the White House after November's U.S. election.

"It's in both sides' interests to have some practical issues settled before November 2024. Neither Macron nor Xi wants a two-front war," he said.

Macron style

Macron is keen to embrace, hug, wink at or slap his counterparts on the back - which he did not chance with Xi, who is not a hugger.

Macron did do so at the time with then U.S President Trump and with Russian President Vladimir Putin before the Ukraine war, and more recently with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, much to the pleasure of social media commentators.

Xi's Pyrenees invite has echoes of Trump joining Macron in 2017 to watch the Bastille Day parade, or Putin's 2019 trip to the French president's Bregancon fortress summer retreat, in southeast France.

"Emmanuel Macron attempted this narcissistic diplomacy of 'I flatter the tyrant' with Vladimir Putin for five years, with the Bregancon fort ... the camaraderie," Raphael Glucksmann, who leads the French Socialists' European Parliament ticket, told RTL radio.

"And all that ended with what, the invasion of Ukraine and the threats to our democracies," Glucksmann said.

The European Union's 27 members ran a trade deficit of 396 billion euros ($426.25 billion) with China in 2022, according to European Commission data, compared with a 250.3 billion deficit a year earlier.

French cognac makers rallied on Tuesday as Xi presented what Macron described as an "open attitude" towards a trade dispute between the two countries.

(Reuters)