“It is vital for us to be right here,” Harris instructed Macron as they embraced. “We’ve got a protracted and shared historical past — and future.”
The second was simply one in all a number of pictures that outlined Harris’ tightly choreographed five-day journey to the French capital and instructed the story that Harris — and President Joe Biden, who dispatched her there — supposed to inform: that of a French-American relationship again on monitor.
“I’ll inform you that it was a really productive and a superb journey,” Harris mentioned to reporters on Saturday, “and we have now numerous follow-up stuff. … Our work will proceed, and we do it with a way of optimism however a way of sturdy conviction that the partnership between the US and France stays and can proceed to be very sturdy.”
Not like in June — which noticed Harris’ stumbles in an interview overshadow an in any other case profitable journey — Harris managed to keep away from controversy and avoid diplomatic and political minefields. She left France on Saturday and is about to reach in Washington later within the day.
“I’ll inform you that was not the aim of this journey, and we did not focus on it,” Harris mentioned Friday, when chatting with reporters in Paris. The vice chairman has been requested if she believed she had executed the job to restore the connection, after the scuttled deal.
“What we did focus on is the problems which can be difficult us and the problems which can be the idea for this relationship and the energy and the endurance of this relationship,” she added.
After largely burying the hatchet with Biden forward of the G20 in Rome final month, Macron appeared largely content material to revel within the gesture of the vice chairman’s presence in Paris and the gesture of a prolonged journey as the subsequent step within the course of.
“I wish to thanks on your presence. You are greater than welcome not simply on this palace with myself and my ministers, however I can inform you that French persons are extraordinarily proud to have you ever right here at this time,” Macron mentioned as he opened a gathering with Harris on the Elysée, including in French that he was “extraordinarily grateful” for her go to.
Harris’ go to to the Elysée gave her and Macron a possibility to spend time one-on-one, with out aides current, earlier than sitting down for a bilateral assembly that went over time, prompting French protocol officers to enter the room thrice in an effort to wrap up the assembly.
Harris and Macron laughed about these makes an attempt the subsequent morning as they met for the Armistice Day Ceremony.
Past their time collectively, Harris’ solo visits have been additionally highly effective diplomatic messaging moments.
Harris’ multi-hour attendance and remarks on the Paris Peace Discussion board helped lend credibility to a Macron initiative. Her go to to the French biomedical analysis Pasteur Institute highlighted longstanding French-American cooperation on scientific analysis — in addition to Harris’ personal private connection to that cooperation within the type of her mom’s analysis on the institute within the 80s. And a closing go to to one of many websites of the 2015 terrorist assaults in Paris on the sixth anniversary underscored shared values and a dedication to preventing terrorism.
Nevertheless it was Harris’ go to to the Suresnes American Cemetery, the place Individuals who fought and died in France throughout World Wars I and II are buried, that served as maybe probably the most highly effective reminder of the shared sacrifice between the 2 nations and a deeply rooted bond.
“If there’s any query in regards to the why or the what, when it comes to our relationship as the US with France, that’s one visible and one concrete instance of the endurance and the mutual dedication and interdependence between the US and France,” Harris mentioned on Friday, reflecting on her go to to the cemetery.
