Macron and French First Lady take Chinese counterparts to the Alps

French President Emmanuel Macron was spotted wining and dining China’s President Xi Jinping and his wife in the Alps as he attempts to end Beijing’s support for Putin.

Macron on Tuesday hosted the Chinese leader for a high altitude lunch in the Pyrenees mountains on his second day of his state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019.

The French president, joined initially by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion of Ukraine and asked Beijing to do all it could to end the war.

Xi, for his part, warned the West not to ‘smear’ China over the conflict and also hit back at accusations that Chinese overcapacity was causing global trade imbalances.

Macron welcomed Xi to a mountain restaurant outside the village of Bagnere-de-Bigorre to explore these issues in relative privacy and enjoy local delicacies.

French President Emmanuel Macron (C-L) and his wife Brigitte Macron (L), Chinese President’s wife Peng Liyuan (R) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (C-R) have a drink in a restaurant at the Tourmalet Pass in the Pyrenees mountains, France, May 7, 2024

Chinese President Xi Jinping tastes a drink in a restaurant at the Tourmalet Pass in the Pyrenees moutains

Chinese President Xi Jinping (L) and his wife Peng Liyuan enjoy a drink in a restaurant at the Tourmalet pass, in the Pyrenees moutains, as part of his two-day state visit to France

Images from the glam event show the leaders and their wives, Brigitte Macron and Peng Liyuan, enjoying glasses of wine and nibbling on cheese in a restaurant at the Tourmalet Pass.

A French kiss! President Macron greets China’s Peng Liyuan with a peck on the hand as she and her husband President Xi Jinping attend state banquet in Paris

Other photos show Xi sipping on a coffee in the wooden building where a young Macron spent numerous winter and summer holidays with his late maternal grandparents.

The inclement weather – with flurries of snow and mist blocking the spectacular views – left the leaders and their wives, firmly entrenched under umbrellas as they watched local dances.

But they were also all smiles as they enjoyed local wine in the cosy chalet-style restaurant, with Macron offering gifts including berets and a Tour de France yellow jersey.

‘Emmanuel Macron’s diplomacy has always relied, perhaps excessively, on the power of seduction,’ said Bertrand Badie, specialist in international relations at Sciences Po university, warning that Xi was not known for ‘sentimentality’.

Europe is concerned that while officially neutral over the Ukraine conflict, Beijing is essentially backing Russia, which is using Chinese machine tools for weapons production.

The other two countries chosen by Xi for his European tour after France – Serbia and Hungary – are seen as among the most sympathetic to Moscow in Europe.

French President Emmanuel Macron, left, drinks coffee in a restaurant with Chinese President Xi Jinping, his wife Peng Liyuan, and Brigitte Macron. The French president is hosting China’s leader at a remote mountain pass in the Pyrenees for private meetings, after a high-stakes state visit in Paris dominated by trade disputes and Russia’s war in Ukraine

Chinese President Xi Jinping (C-R) and his wife Peng Liyuan (R), talk to French President Emmanuel Macron (C-L), holding a Tour de France cycling race jersey next to his wife Brigitte Macron (L) in a restaurant at the Tourmalet Pass

Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte Macron, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and his wife Peng Liyuan watch folklore dancers

Chinese President Xi Jinping drinks coffee in a restaurant, on Tuesday, May 7, 2024. French Macron made a point of inviting Chinese President Xi Jinping to the Tourmalet Pass near the Spanish border, where Macron spent time as a child visiting his grandmother

After a bilateral meeting with Xi, Macron welcomed China’s ‘commitments’ not to supply arms to Russia, while also expressing concern over possible deliveries of dual-use technology.

He thanked Xi for backing his idea of a truce in all conflicts including Ukraine during the Paris Olympics this summer and pointedly added that France was not seeking ‘regime change’ in Russia.

Xi, who is due to host Russian President Vladimir Putin in China later this month, warned against using the Ukraine crisis ‘to cast blame, smear a third country and incite a new Cold War’.

Macron is accused of ‘flattering tyrants’ and ‘rolling out the red carpet’ for Chinese President Xi Jinping as two leaders pose for photos with their wives at the Elysee Palace

Writing in Serbian daily Politika ahead of arriving in Belgrade later on Tuesday, Xi criticised NATO for its ‘flagrant’ bombing of the Chinese embassy in Yugoslavia in 1999, warning Beijing would ‘never allow such tragic history to repeat itself’.

Both Macron and von der Leyen made trade a priority in the talks, underscoring that Europe must defend its ‘strategic interests’ in its economic relations with China amid fears of a trade war.

Von der Leyen said there were ‘imbalances that remain significant’ and ‘a matter of great concern’, singling out Chinese subsidies for electric cars and steel that were ‘flooding the European market’.

Macron thanked Xi for not imposing ‘provisional’ customs duties on French cognac amid an ongoing anti-dumping investigation, and presented him with bottles of the expensive drink.

Rights groups and political opponents have railed at the red-carpet welcome for Xi.

They accuse Macron of turning a blind eye to abuses by Beijing, including repression of the Uyghur minority while placing too much emphasis on his counterpart’s pledges.

The visit has also coincided with intensified concerns about alleged Chinese hacking attacks – denied by Beijing – against lawmakers and officials in European countries including France, Germany and the UK.

Raphael Glucksmann, a Socialist candidate for the European Parliament elections in June, denounced the ‘friendly tone’ of the visit.

He told RTL television: ‘The man who deports the Uyghurs (and) represses the people of Hong Kong and the Tibetans is not our friend.’

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