French president plays host to US top diplomat
PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron held a closeddoor, low-key meeting on Monday with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at a time when France is in lockdown to fight a second wave of the coronavirus.
No news conferences were held. Unusually, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian met Pompeo at the Elysee Palace, rather than his own office.
Macron’s office described Pompeo’s stop as a “courtesy” visit.
The State Department said Pompeo and Macron discussed “significant threats to global security, efforts to counter violent extremism”.
Pompeo tweeted a photo of himself wearing a Stars and Stripes face mask in the meeting with “my good friend” Le Drian and said they had an “important discussion”.
It wasn’t clear why Pompeo came so far in the midst of the pandemic and for so long, on a three-day stop in Paris that is largely locked down because of a surge of coronavirus cases, for such a low-visibility outcome.
Officials in Pompeo’s team said French authorities told them that no press access was possible due to concerns over the pandemic.
Pompeo appeared last week to cast doubt on US election results, speaking instead of “a smooth transition to a second Trump administration,” referring to US President Donald Trump.
Macron last week spoke by phone with Trump’s challenger Joe Biden to congratulate the Democrat for his victory in the US presidential race.
Before meeting Macron and Le Drian, Pompeo laid a bouquet of red, white and blue flowers at a memorial to victims of terrorism at a Paris landmark, the Hotel des Invalides. The ceremony lasted about a minute.
Scheduling issues
“The United States stands with France. We mourn the victims, pray for their families, and condemn in the strongest terms these senseless attacks against innocent French citizens,” Pompeo tweeted.
From Paris, Pompeo traveled to Turkey, where he was expected to meet religious leaders in Istanbul but not government officials.
Senior State Department officials said the lack of official meetings in Turkey was due to scheduling issues during the brief stop.
They said meetings had been sought but Turkish officials were unable to come to Istanbul from the capital Ankara during Pompeo’s trip there.
The officials noted that Pompeo and his Turkish counterpart planned to see each other in early December at a meeting of NATO foreign ministers.
Later stops on Pompeo’s tour are scheduled to include visits to Georgia, Israel, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.