The decision comes after more than 1,300 were arrested on the fourth night following violent protests in several French cities. The French president’s trip would start this Sunday and run until Tuesday. French President Emmanuel Macron has postponed a visit to Germany scheduled to start this Sunday, announced the office of the German presidency. The postponement decision comes after four days of unrest in France.
“French President Macron spoke today by telephone with German President (Frank-Walter) Steinmeier and briefed him on the situation in his country,” the German president’s office said on Saturday (01/07). “President Macron has asked for the postponement of his planned state visit to Germany,” he added.
The Élysée Palace said separately that Macron had expressed his desire to remain in France in the coming days, given the situation in the country. No new date has been agreed for the visit, according to a French source.
Steinmeier “regrets the cancellation and has full understanding given the situation in our neighboring country,” his office said in the statement. He hopes that “the violence in the streets ends as soon as possible and that social peace can be restored”.
The state visit is seen as an opportunity to reinvigorate relations between the two EU giants, with Macron scheduled to criss-cross the country from west to east on his three-day visit.
The trip would mark the first state visit by a French president to Germany since 2000, when Jacques Chirac traveled to Berlin. A French source noted, however, that the two sides have “many opportunities to meet” and that a state visit is more a way of celebrating Franco-German friendship than a strictly political meeting. As such, the timing for this visit “was not the most propitious”.
riots in france
Security forces arrested at least 1,311 people in France on the fourth night of riots following the death of a teenager shot by police, the interior ministry said on Saturday.
France mobilized 45,000 police overnight on Friday, who took to the streets in armored vehicles to stop the violent protests sparked by the death on Tuesday of Nahel, a 17-year-old teenager shot at close range by a police officer during a traffic stop in a suburb of Paris.
Nahel’s burial was scheduled for this Saturday in Nanterre, his hometown.
md (AFP, Reuters)
#Macron #postpones #visit #Germany #unrest #France