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IN PICTURES: Charles III welcomed to France on first visit as king

King Charles III on Wednesday began his first state visit to France as monarch, a rescheduled trip aimed at showing the fundamentals of the cross-Channel alliance remain strong despite a litany of political tensions after Brexit.

Published: 20 September 2023 16:43 CEST

IN PICTURES: Charles III welcomed to France on first visit as king

Emmanuel Macron and Brigitte Macron (R) greet King Charles III and Queen Camilla at the Elysee Palace. (Photo by HANNAH MCKAY / POOL / AFP)

The king and Queen Camilla were welcomed at Paris Orly airport by Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne.

French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne greets Britain’s King Charles III and Britain’s Queen Camilla at Orly Airport. (Photo by Tim Rooke / POOL / AFP)

They were then welcomed by French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte at the Arc de Triomphe monument in central Paris, where they laid wreaths to the countries’ war dead at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

King Charles IIIand French President Emmanuel Macron attend a wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the Arc de Triomphe. (Photo by Chris Jackson / POOL / AFP)

They then boarded a Citroen DS7 convertible, escorted by 136 horses of the Republican Guard, to head up the Champs-Elysées for the Elysée Palace, where the king took part in talks with Macron on issues including the environment.

(Photo by Yoan VALAT / POOL / AFP)

In the evening the Macrons will host the royal couple at a sumptuous state banquet at Versailles, the palace west of the capital synonymous with French royalty.

The menu will included delicacies including blue lobster cooked as a starter by star chef Anne-Sophie Pic, who has said she was inspired by the tastes of the so called “Sun King” Louis XIV.

Guests at the dinner at the glittering Hall of Mirrors will include Charlotte Gainsbourg, the actor and daughter of Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin, Hugh Grant and French former Arsenal football manager Arsene Wenger.

The official welcoming ceremony at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. (Photo by Thomas SAMSON / AFP)

Macron, who has faced accusations from left-wing opponents of himself behaving like a monarch, will likely be eager to ensure the event proceeds smoothly without showing excess at a time of economic frugality.

“This image, in this context, is obviously fundamentally harmful for Emmanuel Macron even if there are diplomatic imperatives behind it which also play a role,” French author and academic Benjamin Morel told AFP.

French Air Force elite acrobatic flying team Patrouille de France and the British Royal Air Force’s aerobatic team the “Red Arrows” perform a fly past. (Photo by Thomas SAMSON / AFP)

The Arc de Triomphe was the location for her ceremonial arrival on her last state visit in 2014.

On her first visit, in 1957, she lunched with president Rene Coty in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. Charles will address lawmakers in the French Senate on Thursday, again following in the footsteps of his mother who did the same in 2004.

The queen also spent two days in Bordeaux on a state visit in 1992.

King Charles III and French President Emmanuel Macron at the Elysee Palace. (Photo by Ludovic MARIN / POOL / AFP)

Charles’ visit is seen as the follow-up to moves by UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to reset relations between the two neighbours following tensions sparked by the UK’s exit from the EU.

Coincidentally, Charles arrives one day after Macron held talks with British opposition leader Keir Starmer, whose Labour Party is increasingly confident of being able to oust the ruling Conservatives from power.

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Azerbaijan vehemently rejects the accusation it bears responsibility for the riots that have led to the deaths of five people and rattled the Paris government.

But it is just the latest in a litany of tensions between Paris and Baku and not the first time France has accused Azerbaijan of being behind an alleged disinformation campaign.

The riots in New Caledonia, a French territory lying between Australia and Fiji, were sparked by moves to agree a new voting law that supporters of independence from France say discriminates against the indigenous Kanak population.

Paris points to the sudden emergence of Azerbaijani flags alongside Kanak symbols in the protests, while a group linked to the Baku authorities is openly backing separatists while condemning Paris.

“This isn’t a fantasy. It’s a reality,” interior minister Gérald Darmanin told television channel France 2 when asked if Azerbaijan, China and Russia were interfering in New Caledonia.

“I regret that some of the Caledonian pro-independence leaders have made a deal with Azerbaijan. It’s indisputable,” he alleged.

But he added: “Even if there are attempts at interference… France is sovereign on its own territory, and so much the better”.

“We completely reject the baseless accusations,” Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry spokesman Ayhan Hajizadeh said.

“We refute any connection between the leaders of the struggle for freedom in Caledonia and Azerbaijan.”

In images widely shared on social media, a reportage broadcast Wednesday on the French channel TF1 showed some pro-independence supporters wearing T-shirts adorned with the Azerbaijani flag.

Tensions between Paris and Baku have grown in the wake of the 2020 war and 2023 lightning offensive that Azerbaijan waged to regain control of its breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region from ethnic Armenian separatists.

France is a traditional ally of Christian Armenia, Azerbaijan’s neighbour and historic rival, and is also home to a large Armenian diaspora.

Darmanin said Azerbaijan – led since 2003 by President Ilham Aliyev, who succeeded his father Heydar – was a “dictatorship”.

On Wednesday, the Paris government also banned social network TikTok from operating in New Caledonia.

Tiktok, whose parent company is Chinese, has been widely used by protesters. Critics fear it is being employed to spread disinformation coming from foreign countries.

Azerbaijan invited separatists from the French territories of Martinique, French Guiana, New Caledonia and French Polynesia to Baku for a conference in July 2023.

The meeting saw the creation of the “Baku Initiative Group”, whose stated aim is to support “French liberation and anti-colonialist movements”.

The group published a statement this week condemning the French parliament’s proposed change to New Caledonia’s constitution, which would allow outsiders who moved to the territory at least 10 years ago the right to vote in its elections.

Pro-independence forces say that would dilute the vote of Kanaks, who make up about 40 percent of the population.

“We stand in solidarity with our Kanak friends and support their fair struggle,” the Baku Initiative Group said.

Raphael Glucksmann, the lawmaker heading the list for the French Socialists in June’s European Parliament elections, told Public Senat television that Azerbaijan had made “attempts to interfere… for months”.

He said the underlying problem behind the unrest was a domestic dispute over election reform, not agitation fomented by “foreign actors”.

But he accused Azerbaijan of “seizing on internal problems.”

A French government source, who asked not to be named, said pro-Azerbaijani social media accounts had on Wednesday posted an edited montage purporting to show two white police officers with rifles aimed at dead Kanaks.

“It’s a pretty massive campaign, with around 4,000 posts generated by (these) accounts,” the source told AFP.

“They are reusing techniques already used during a previous smear campaign called Olympia.”

In November, France had already accused actors linked to Azerbaijan of carrying out a disinformation campaign aimed at damaging its reputation over its ability to host the Olympic Games in Paris. Baku also rejected these accusations.