STOCKHOLM (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron
was welcomed Tuesday with pomp and ceremony at the start of a two-day
state visit to Sweden during which he will meet Prime Minister Ulf
Kristersson and the Scandinavian country’s monarch, King Carl XVI
Gustaf.
Macron and his wife, Brigitte, were greeted by the
king in the inner courtyard of the downtown Stockholm royal castle that
is the official residence of the Swedish royals. There, Macron and Carl
Gustaf reviewed members of the Grenadier Guards that had lined up.
Macron noted that it had been too long since a French president
visited Sweden — the last time was in 2000, when Jacques Chirac traveled
to the Scandinavian country.
“My visit is therefore first and foremost to renew
our friendship, our partnership in the European Union, and as Sweden
prepares to join NATO, our alliance,” Macron said.
Later Tuesday, Macron is to discuss the future of European security
at a military academy in Stockholm, together with Kristersson and the
king. Russia’s war on Ukraine and Sweden’s NATO application are likely
to be on the table.
After more than a year of delays, Turkey earlier this month completed
its ratification of Sweden’s bid to join NATO, meaning Hungary is now
the last member of the military alliance not to have given its approval.
All NATO countries must agree before a new member can join the
alliance.
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February
2022, Sweden and neighboring Finland abandoned their traditional
positions of military nonalignment to seek protection under NATO’s
security umbrella. Finland joined the alliance last year.
On Wednesday, Macron and his wife are to travel to Malmo, Sweden’s
third largest city, in southern Sweden, where they will visit a European
multidisciplinary research facility under construction and visit a
company to discuss green technologies.
At home, Macron’s government faces angry farmers who have camped out
around Paris. They demand better pay, fewer constraints and lower costs.
On Monday, they encircled Paris with traffic-snarling barricades, using
hundreds of tractors and hay bales to block highways leading to the
capital.
The French president initially was to travel to Sweden in late
October, but the visit was postponed due to the Gaza war that began with
Hamas’ attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7
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