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Macron and Biden ‘agree on Covid and climate change’ after phone call

French President Emmanuel Macron and new US President Joe Biden are in agreement on climate change and how to fight coronavirus, the Elysee palace said on Sunday.

Macron and Biden 'agree on Covid and climate change' after phone call
Photo: AFP

The two leaders spoke for the first time since Biden's inauguration in a telephone call Sunday and also discussed “their willingness to act together for peace in the Near and Middle East, in particular on the Iranian nuclear issue,” the French presidency said.

The pair spoke for about an hour in English, according to members of Macron's team.

Earlier this week, Macron had lauded Biden's decision to return to the Paris climate accord.

 

Former US President Donald Trump formally pulled the United States out of the Paris climate accord in November last year, claiming it “was designed to kill the American economy” rather than save the environment.

Describing France as America's “oldest ally,” a White House statement added that Biden had pledged close coordination with Paris on climate change, Covid-19 and the global economy.

It said Biden “stressed his commitment to bolstering the transatlantic relationship, including through NATO and the United States' partnership with the European Union.”

The call was the US leader's latest effort to mend relations with Europe after they were badly strained under his predecessor Trump.

READ ALSO 'A friend of France' – who is the fluent French-speaker representing the USA on the world stage?

The White House said Biden and Macron also discussed cooperation on China, the Middle East, Russia and the Sahel.

Macron had initially attempted to forge a close relationship with Trump, but the two later were frequently at odds over Syria, US tariffs and Trump's withdrawal from the Paris climate accord – which Biden moved to re-enter on his first day in office.

Biden spoke on Saturday with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and the two vowed to deepen cooperation and work together to tackle climate change, the prime minister's office said.

That call was Biden's first to a European leader, according to British newspapers.

His first call to any foreign leader went to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada on Friday, followed by President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of Mexico.

Biden has vowed to return to a more traditional US diplomacy built around close ties to the two North American partners, Western Europe and Asian allies such as Japan and South Korea.

Europeans have responded with expressions of relief, tempered by some doubts that the US is as reliable a friend as it was in the past.

Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Council, said after Biden's inauguration Wednesday that that quadrennial ceremony had provided “resounding proof that, once again, after four long years, Europe has a friend in the White House.”

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POLITICS

British PM promises ‘new impetus’ to French ties

Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer promised on Thursday to bring a "new impetus" to ties with France and to work with Paris to oppose Russia's invasion of Ukraine and end migrant-trafficking across the Channel.

British PM promises 'new impetus' to French ties

Starmer was to meet France’s President Emmanuel Macron later in the day for one-to-one talks on the sidelines of the European Political Community summit in Blenheim Palace, near Oxford.

In a piece published in French newspaper Le Monde to mark the meeting, the new British premier acknowledged Britain is no longer one of France’s EU partners, since the previous government left the union.

But, Starmer wrote, 120 years after the Entente Cordiale agreements resolving colonial disputes between Paris and London, “we are still bound by many things”, citing the G7 group, UN Security Council and NATO.

And he recalled the key role Britain and France have played as European military and economic powers in resisting Russia.

“I never thought, in my lifetime, that I would hear the rumble of war echoing across Europe. I never thought a leader would choose such an absurd and destructive path,” Starmer wrote.

“And yet, Russian President Vladimir Putin made this choice. Our determination to face it must never waver.”

Freshly elected at the head of a Labour Party government with a large House of Commons majority, Starmer also addressed the issue of cross-Channel migration, which has hurt ties in the recent past.

As prime minister, Starmer has already abandoned his predecessor’s efforts to expel asylum-seekers arriving in Britain by boat to Rwanda, but is still seeking a way to slow arrivals from France.

“A veritable criminal empire is today at work throughout Europe. It profits from human misery and despair, sending countless innocent people to their deaths in the waters of the English Channel,” he said.

“For me, this problem is no longer a challenge, it is a crisis. We will therefore work with France and with all our European partners to resolve it,” he wrote, vowing that Britain would respect international law.

The former senior lawyer stressed that Britain would continue to respect the European Convention on Human Rights, which the previous government had considered quitting.

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