‘Sorry Charles!’ French unions mark king’s absence with banner

French unions on Thursday unfurled a giant banner opposite English shores to goad Britain's King Charles III after his first foreign state visit to France was cancelled.

Published: 30 March 2023 16:18 CEST

'Sorry Charles!' French unions mark king's absence with banner

French union members unfurl banners including one reading "Sorry Charles, see you later" after a trip by Britain's King Charles III to France was postponed in the wake of violent protests over a pensions reform (Photo by BERNARD BARRON / AFP)

“Sorry Charles, see you later,” said the banner unfurled by union activists a week after President Emmanuel Macron postponed at the last minute the planned visit by Charles.

Macron said that nationwide union-led protests and strikes against contentious pension reforms prevented France from hosting Charles in the manner it had hoped.

With the trip postponed, it fell to Germany to host Charles for his first foreign trip as monarch, where he was received with pomp on Wednesday and Thursday.

Around 100 French union members unfurled the banner on Cap Blanc Nez, a point outside the northern city of Calais that is one of the closest places in France to England.

They battled clifftop winds but succeeded in unfurling the banner so it could be easily seen from the coast.

The postponement of the visit meant that Charles had to forgo plans for a state banquet at the Palace of Versailles outside Paris and a trip to the southwestern city of Bordeaux.

Macron has said the visit could go ahead in the early summer, but it remains unclear if Charles will find space in his schedule.

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The far-right Rassemblement National (RN) is currently far ahead in opinion polls for the June 9th elections in France, with Emmanuel Macron’s centrist Renaissance party in a battle for second place with the Socialists.

The debate between Attal, 35, and Bardella, 28, who leads the RN’s list in the EU elections, will be the first head-to-head clash between the two leading figures in a new French political generation.

Polls have been making increasingly uncomfortable reading for Macron, who has had to fly to the French Pacific territory of New Caledonia to try to calm the violent unrest there.

Coming third would be a disaster for the president, who portrays himself as a champion of European democracy and bulwark against the far right.

The head of Macron’s party list for the elections, the little known Valérie Heyer, has failed to make an impact and was widely seen as losing a debate with Bardella earlier this month.

According to a Toluna-Harris Interactive study for French media, the presidential camp is stuck at just 15 percent of the vote and in a dogfight for second place with the Socialists – who are on 14.5 percent – led by former commentator Raphael Glucksmann.

The RN, by contrast, is soaring ahead on 31.5 percent.

The RN’s figurehead Marine Le Pen, who has waged three unsuccessful presidential campaigns, has sought to bring the RN into the political mainstream as she eyes another tilt at the presidency in 2027.

“There is a very clear signal that must be sent to Emmanuel Macron. He must suffer the worst possible defeat to bring him back to earth,” Le Pen told CNews and Europe 1 this week.

Bardella, who took over the party leadership from his mentor, is key to Le Pen’s strategy, a gifted communicator of immigrant origin with an expanding following on TikTok.

Attal, also one of the best debaters in Macron’s government, is expected to seek to portray Bardella as an extremist, complacent over the threat posed by Russia and who has little interest in Europe.

Apparently aware of the danger, Bardella on Tuesday said the RN will no longer sit in the EU parliament with the Alternative for Germany (AfD) faction, indicating it had lost patience with the controversies surrounding its German allies.

The head of the AfD’s list in the polls, Maximilian Krah, had said in a weekend interview that someone who had been a member of the SS in Nazi Germany was “not automatically a criminal”.

Bardella is “putting his credibility and the future of his movement on the line in the debate”, said the Le Monde daily, adding that a strong performance could see some RN supporters regard him as a stronger candidate in 2027 than Le Pen.

You can find a more detailed profile of Attal HERE and a look at Bardella HERE