City celebrates anniversary of World War II liberation
Paris celebrated the American soldiers, French Resistance fighters and others who liberated the City of Light from Nazi occupation exactly 75 years ago Sunday.
Firefighters unfurled a huge French flag from the Eiffel Tower, re-creating the moment when a French tricolor stitched together from sheets was hoisted atop the monument 75 years ago.
Dozens of World War Ii-era jeeps, armored vehicles, motorcycles and trucks and people dressed in wartime uniforms and dresses paraded through southern Paris.
Among those watching the parade was veteran Roger Acher, 96. Fighting was fierce as forces moved toward the city, he recalled. He added: “I almost got killed.”
BIARRITZ, France — A top Iranian official paid an unannounced visit Sunday to the G-7 summit and headed straight toward the heart of the city, where leaders of the world’s major democracies have been debating how to handle the country’s nuclear ambitions.
France’s surprise invitation of Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif was a high-stakes gamble for French President Emmanuel Macron, who is the host of the Group of Seven gathering in Biarritz.
Zarif spent about five hours in Biarritz after his plane touched down at the airport, which has been closed since Friday to all flights unrelated to the official G-7 delegations.
A senior French official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive talks, said Macron personally informed President Donald Trump about the invitation to Zarif.
The official noted that Macron and Trump met for two hours Saturday and discussed Iran at length, as well as at the informal group dinner Saturday night.
Zarif, who is under U.S. sanctions, had been scheduled to go to Asia as part of a tour to seek support for Iran amid the American campaign against it since Trump withdrew the U.S. from Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal.
Zarif arrived as fissures emerged among G-7 leaders over how to deal with Iran.
For several months, Macron has taken a lead role in trying to save the 2015 nuclear accord, which has been unraveling since Trump pulled the U.S. out of the agreement. His office said the G-7 leaders agreed he should serve as a go-between with Iran.
“I haven’t discussed that,” Trump said Sunday morning. He described the dinner as “very, very good” and blamed the media for anything that implied otherwise.
But it seemed from other accounts that the dinner had been tense, with a clear divide between him and the rest of the G-7.
Tristen Naylor, deputy director of the G7 Research Group, described the invitation as “a wild-card move.”
“The risks to the French president were quite large. He could have evoked a very strong and negative reaction from the American president, everything from outright condemnation to actually the American president just saying ‘Enough of this’ and getting on the plane and flying away,” Naylor said.
But the invitation was also something of a mirror of Trump’s own high-stakes diplomacy.
“Something that we’ve learned over the 2 ½ years about the American president is that what works with him, what resonates with him, is surprise, is a big move, something flashy,” he said. “And the French president has taken a page from it, I think, executed a maneuver out of it with great aplomb.”