Emmanuel Macron has been welcomed to the UK with a ceremony of pomp and pageantry as he marked the 80th anniversary of a famous wartime broadcast by General Charles de Gaulle.
The Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall greeted the French president at their official London home, Clarence House, remaining 2 metres apart in line with physical distancing guidelines.
Macron and Boris Johnson will hold talks later to discuss the coronavirus crisis and other issues, and the prime minister indicated he would raise travel between the UK and France at the meeting.
Earlier, Macron attended events in France to commemorate De Gaulle’s rallying cry, made on the BBC in June 1940, in which he urged the people of France to resist the Nazi occupation.
The wartime leader of the Free French Forces said: “I call upon all French servicemen of the land, sea and air forces; I call upon French engineers and skilled armaments workers who are on British soil, or have the means of getting here, to come and join me. I call upon all Frenchmen who want to remain free to listen to my voice and follow me.”
De Gaulle and the Free French made their wartime base in Carlton Gardens, near Clarence House, and from there began to build up their forces.
London’s support for the exiled French will be recognised by Macron when he awards the city France’s highest decoration, the Légion d’honneur.
The president arrived in his official plane, a Dassault Falcon 7X decorated in the national colours of France, at RAF Northolt in west London.
An RAF aircraft used by the prime minister and senior royals for official travel is to have a makeover in the colours of the union flag. Opposition MPs have reacted with fury to the £900,000 bill for the paint job.
Johnson has said four surviving French resistance fighters “compagnons” of the Order of Liberation: Edgard Tupet-Thome, 100, Daniel Bouyjou-Cordier, 99, Hubert Germain, 99, and Pierre Simonet, 98, will receive honorary MBEs in tribute to their “courage and sacrifice in defending us and the whole world from fascism”. The awards will be presented at a ceremony in France in the coming months.
Lined up outside Clarence House was a ceremonial guard of honour from No 7 Company Coldstream Guards, joined by the band of the Coldstream Guards, who all stood at least 2 metres apart.
After the playing of the national anthems of France and the UK, the guard commander Maj Piers Gambarini invited Macron to inspect the servicemen. He was accompanied by Charles, and the two men sheltered under umbrellas as rain fell.
Macron walked past the servicemen, who when not performing ceremonial duties are fighting soldiers. He and Charles later posed for an official photograph before holding talks in Clarence House.
source https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/18/emmanuel-macron-marks-de-gaulle-speech-anniversary-in-london-boris-johnson
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