From Reuters:
“Disappointment for King Charles as
first overseas visit as monarch is postponed”
(Britain's King Charles and Queen
Camilla leave after their visit to the Bolton Town Hall, in Bolton, Britain
January 20, 2023.)
King Charles' first state visit to
France as British monarch, postponed on Friday because of widespread social
unrest, was supposed to be an occasion celebrating a new chapter of harmony in
relations between London and Paris. Instead, a visit that would have featured a
banquet at the old royal palace at Versailles and a visit to the legendary
Bordeaux wine-growing region has fallen victim to anti-government protests in
France which have seen angry crowds setting buildings ablaze and clashing with
police.
As well as an embarrassment to French
President Emmanuel Macron, the postponement is a disappointment for Charles,
taking the gloss off his first international engagement since succeeding his
mother Queen Elizabeth in September. "The king and queen consort were of
course very much looking forward to the visit," a Buckingham Palace source
said. "But when the UK prime minister informed the king of his
conversation with the French President, in which the president had recommended
postponing, the king of course fully understood and was content to accept the
PM’s advice to postpone." On the first state visits of his reign, the new
monarch and his wife Camilla, the Queen Consort, were going first to France
before heading on to Germany.
The tour was designed to celebrate
Britain's ties with the two European powers after its 2016 vote to leave the
European Union and the tortuous negotiations that followed badly strained
relations. The French leg was to see Charles laying a wreath with Macron at the
Arc de Triomphe and joining him for a state banquet at the Palace of
Versailles. The symbolism of the occasion at Versailles - the once home of the
French monarchy and emblematic of its excesses for revolutionaries who ousted
and guillotined King Louis XVI - was not lost on France's hard-left leader
Jean-Luc Melenchon. "The meeting of the kings in Versailles is broken up
by popular censure," Melenchon said on Twitter. Charles had also been due
to address senators and members of the National Assembly where Macron's
government narrowly survived a vote of no-confidence this week over an
unpopular pension bill, and travel south to Bordeaux.
ANGRY MOOD In a stark demonstration of the angry
protests that are gripping France over Macron's pension reforms, the main
entrance of the Bordeaux town hall was set on fire on Thursday evening. "It
was going to be a great visit in different times. Now it jars with the angry
mood in France," Peter Ricketts, a former British ambassador to France,
told Sky News. It was the right decision for the trip to be postponed in
case it had been overshadowed by embarrassing incidents, he said. "It
must have been completely obvious to Buckingham Palace that it was very
difficult for the French," he said.
State visits, which usually take
months of careful planning, have long been part of the armoury of Britain's
'soft power' and Queen Elizabeth made more than 100 such trips during her
record-breaking 70-year reign, including many to France. Nor would the
impact of dealing with protests be lost on Charles after angry demonstrators
kicked and threw paint over a car carrying him and Camilla during rioting in
London in 2010. Both the palace and Macron said they looked forward to
the postponed trip going ahead in the future when dates can be found. "It's
going to be several months clearly before the visit can be set up again in the
diaries of the two men and with circumstances hopefully a bit calmer in
France," Ricketts said. "But when it comes it will be a real
celebration."
^ Finding a time when France isn’t
striking or violent is near-impossible. ^
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