Remarks by President Biden and President Emmanuel Macron of France Before Bilateral Meeting

Oval Office

10:44 A.M. EST 

PRESIDENT BIDEN:  Well, it’s great to have my good friend back here.  Welcome back to the White House.  This is his second visit. 

And we’ve always — it’s interesting — as we said today in our short remarks, France and the United States have always stood together.  And I can say that President Macron and I have stood together since we’ve worked together in the G7 meetings, the G20.  And we — France is an incredibly, incredibly valued ally.

And I know it sounds like hyperbole, but from — from the Revolutionary War to the world wars to today, we’re — we’ve been locked at the hip in what we’ve been doing. 

And our efforts are continuing at NATO, the G7, the G20.  And there’s a lot — a lot going on. 

As I constantly am probably boring you all with, we are at a real inflection point.  Things are changing rapidly — really rapidly. 

And it’s really important that we stay in close communication.  It doesn’t mean that every single, solitary thing we agree on.  But it does mean that we agree on almost everything.

And we’re working together to strengthen the security and prosperity across the Atlantic and in each of our countries, but also Europe as a whole.

Emmanuel is not just the leader of France, he’s one of the leaders of Europe.  He’s been very outspoken, and he has been very, very commanding in Europe. 

And this morning, we’re going to discuss our cooperation on all the issues, from high-tech commerce to defense to cyber to space to a whole range of issues that are on both of our agendas.

     Mr. President, I look forward to our conversation today.  I know you’ve had some good conversations already with some of our senior administration officials.  And I look forward to today.

     The floor is yours, sir.

     PRESIDENT MACRON:  Thank you.  Thank you, Mr. President, dear Joe.

     Let me first say that I’m extremely happy and honored to be here for the first state visit of your administration.  And this is, for me, the best evidence of this, indeed, very long-term friendship and partnership.  And this is exactly the basis of — of our relation.

     We will discuss about a lot of topics, but, obviously, we — we are together in challenging times globally and with the war in Ukraine launched by Russia.  And so, obviously, it will be the first topic of discussion for both of us.

     And since the very beginning of this war, we worked very hard together in order to help Ukraine to resist and to be resilient, and we will reinforce this — this action. 

But what we want to do as well — and I want really to pay tribute to a lot of statements you made — we want to build peace.  And sustainable peace means full respect of sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine but, at the same time, a new architecture to be sure that we have a sustainable peace on the long run.  And we are very much committed on — on the — on this issue.

     We will discuss about, as well, energy, economy, space, nuclear.  And I spoke about this: We’re in synchronization.  And I think this is extremely important, precisely, to have close coordination between us on these different issues.  Because we want to fix the direct and indirect consequences of the war on our economies and our people. 

But at the same time, we want to prepare for future generations a carbon-neutral economy, creating a lot of jobs, which means investing a lot in our economies.  And we have to synchronize our action on this issue.  And it will be an important topic of discussion.
    
     Beyond that, we will discuss climate change and biodiversity and the common actions in the — in this field, health, and a lot of global topics where our alliance is so critical.

     But let me, once again, thank you — thank you and your wife for the wonderful dinner we had yesterday, for the friendship, and, really, for the quality of the discussion we have together and the common action and the common decisions we take in this so difficult times. 

Because I think when we look at our common history, this friendship always prevailed — with quite good results, by the way. 

     PRESIDENT BIDEN:  Yes.

     PRESIDENT MACRON:  So, it will prevail.

     PRESIDENT BIDEN:  Folks, we’ll —

(Cross-talk.)

Wait, hold on.  Hold on.  Hold on a second.  You know we are going to do a press conference, so we’ll answer your questions at the press conference.  And that’s going to be shortly.  And I don’t know how shortly — but shortly, okay?

                            END                10:54 A.M. EST

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