France Rolls Out the Red Carpet for King Charles III’s State Visit

President Emmanuel Macron and King Charles III were holding talks in Paris on Wednesday at the start of a long-awaited three-day state visit meant to highlight the friendship between France and the UK

Charles' trip to France was postponed in March amid widespread demonstrations against Macron’s pension changes.

For their first stop in the French capital, Charles and Queen Camilla attended a ceremony at the Arc de Triomphe, where they were greeted by Macron and his wife, Brigitte.

Macron offered a warm welcome to the new king, often putting his hand on his arm and his back. Both smiled as they chatted together.

Paris city center has been placed under high security for the occasion, with thousands of police officers and surveillance drones being deployed.

Small crowds gathered behind a wide range of barriers on the Champs-Elysees to get a chance to see the royal parade.

The visit shows "the deep historical ties that unite our two countries. It is also an opportunity to showcase France’s cultural, artistic and gastronomic excellence," the French presidency said.

At the Arc de Triomphe, both national anthems were played before a review of French troops and a wreath laying at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier to marking "the shared sacrifices of the past and an enduring legacy of cooperation," according to Buckingham Palace.

The jet fighters of the Patrouille de France and Britain's Red Arrows, the acrobatic teams of the two air forces, flew together above the monument, leaving a trail of red, white and blue smoke in the Parisian sky.

Charles and Macron, followed by Brigitte and Camilla in another car, then headed to the presidential palace under escort from the horses of the French National Guard, with both waving at the crowd.

Macron and Charles were holding a bilateral meeting at the Elysee Palace, because the visit also "symbolizes the relationship of friendship and trust" since they "have in the past worked closely together to protect biodiversity and combat global warming," the French presidency said.

The agenda was also due to include talks on Russia's war in Ukraine and the migration issue as Italy's southern island of Lampedusa was in recent days overwhelmed by people setting off from Tunisia.

While the UK royal family long ago ceded political power to elected leaders, members of the royal family remain Britain's preeminent ambassadors as presidents and prime ministers jockey to bask in the glamor and pageantry that follows them wherever they go.

The visit comes amid a recent warming in the Franco-British relationship after years marked by Brexit talks and related disputes.

At a bilateral summit in March, Macron and UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak agreed to strengthen military ties and step up efforts to prevent migrants from crossing the English Channel.

"We know that the British and French relationship has been difficult at times since 2016," Ed Owens, a historian of the British monarchy, told The Associated Press.

"This move on the part of the British state to send the king to France is about reassuring the people of France, but also the people of the UK that this is a relationship of significant important and that it is based on history, heritage and that there are many other things in our shared futures that connect us."

A state dinner on Wednesday in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles in the presence of more than 150 guests will be one of the highlights of the visit.

The menu includes blue lobster and crab followed by Bresse poultry and a gratin of cep mushrooms prepared, respectively, by French chefs Anne-Sophie Pic and Yannick Alléno. Both have been awarded three Michelin stars. The cheese course will feature France’s Comté and Britain’s Stichelton blue cheese. For dessert, world-famous pastry chef Pierre Hermé will prepare his rose macaroon cookie, made of rose petal cream, raspberries and lychees.

On Thursday, Charles will address French lawmakers at the Senate, providing a new venue for the king to show off his language skills after he wowed his audience by switching seamlessly between German and English during a speech to Germany’s parliament in March.

He will later rejoin Macron in front of Notre-Dame Cathedral to see the ongoing renovation work aimed at reopening the monument by the end of next year.

UK Ambassador Menna Rawlings, speaking on French news broadcaster LCI, said that Charles was "very sad" after the monument's spire and roof collapsed in a blaze in 2019. It reminded him of the 1992 fire at Windsor Castle, she added.

"Of course it’s an incredible moment for him to have the opportunity, with the queen, to look at this (renovation) work and also meet the firemen who were involved," she said.

Charles and Macron will also attend a reception for British and French business leaders about financing climate-related and biodiversity projects.

The king will end his trip on Friday with a stop in Bordeaux, home to a large British community. He will meet emergency workers and communities affected by the 2022 wildfires in the area and visit the Forêt Experimentale, or experimental forest, a project designed to monitor the impact of climate on urban woodlands.

Climate change is driving changes in rainfall patterns across the world, scientists said in a paper published on Friday, which could also be intensifying typhoons and other tropical storms.

Taiwan, the Philippines and then China were lashed by the year's most powerful typhoon this week, with schools, businesses and financial markets shut as wind speeds surged up to 227 kph (141 mph). On China's eastern coast, hundreds of thousands of people were evacuated ahead of landfall on Thursday.

Stronger tropical storms are part of a wider phenomenon of weather extremes driven by higher temperatures, scientists say.

Researchers led by Zhang Wenxia at the China Academy of Sciences studied historical meteorological data and found about 75% of the world's land area had seen a rise in "precipitation variability" or wider swings between wet and dry weather.

Warming temperatures have enhanced the ability of the atmosphere to hold moisture, which is causing wider fluctuations in rainfall, the researchers said in a paper published by the Science journal.

"(Variability) has increased in most places, including Australia, which means rainier rain periods and drier dry periods," said Steven Sherwood, a scientist at the Climate Change Research Center at the University of New South Wales, who was not involved in the study.

"This is going to increase as global warming continues, enhancing the chances of droughts and/or floods."

FEWER, BUT MORE INTENSE, STORMS

Scientists believe that climate change is also reshaping the behavior of tropical storms, including typhoons, making them less frequent but more powerful.

"I believe higher water vapor in the atmosphere is the ultimate cause of all of these tendencies toward more extreme hydrologic phenomena," Sherwood told Reuters.

Typhoon Gaemi, which first made landfall in Taiwan on Wednesday, was the strongest to hit the island in eight years.

While it is difficult to attribute individual weather events to climate change, models predict that global warming makes typhoons stronger, said Sachie Kanada, a researcher at Japan's Nagoya University.

"In general, warmer sea surface temperature is a favorable condition for tropical cyclone development," she said.

In its "blue paper" on climate change published this month, China said the number of typhoons in the Northwest Pacific and South China Sea had declined significantly since the 1990s, but they were getting stronger.

Taiwan also said in its climate change report published in May that climate change was likely to reduce the overall number of typhoons in the region while making each one more intense.

The decrease in the number of typhoons is due to the uneven pattern of ocean warming, with temperatures rising faster in the western Pacific than the east, said Feng Xiangbo, a tropical cyclone research scientist at the University of Reading.

Water vapor capacity in the lower atmosphere is expected to rise by 7% for each 1 degree Celsius increase in temperatures, with tropical cyclone rainfall in the United States surging by as much as 40% for each single degree rise, he said.

France Rolls Out the Red Carpet for King Charles III’s State Visit