Paris
The extravagant meal capped off a day filled with frequent backslaps, handshakes, toothy smiles, knee pats, photo ops and a shared determination to find common ground.
Up until now, the relationship between these two world leaders has been largely defined by their stark differences — Trump vs. the international anti-Trump — and a defining moment occurred in May when the boyish 39-year-old French centrist fought for dominance in a white-knuckled handshake with the red-faced 71-year-old U.S. president as reporters and cameras looked on.
But as their presidencies slowly age, it is becoming clear the two leaders have a lot in common.
Both are political outsiders holding their first elected position who relish having defied their countries’ main political parties and maintain a contentious relationship with the media. Both have pledged to dramatically shake up the establishment and rid their capitals of power players and bureaucrats who have long wielded influence. Both have stressed business-friendly policies and promised to roll back regulations.
Both are seeking to confront terrorism with actions critics say could infringe on the freedoms of their citizens.
And Trump and Macron also appear to enjoy the opulence of places such as Les Jules Verne and the pomp that accompanies being a world leader. In the two months that Macron has been president, he has made two major public declarations at Versailles, while Trump likes to give television crews tours of the Oval Office and has hosted several events in the iconic Rose Garden.
Macron’s allies are quick to challenge comparisons to Trump, arguing that former President Barack Obama is a better match, but his critics contend the emerging similarities are more than superficial.
“They both want a monopoly on public attention and are attracted by constant media coverage. And there is a similar kind of narcissism in their attraction to power,” said Patrick Weil, a French constitutional scholar and leading historian of immigration. “Both show a will to govern against the Parliament and against the press — without any separation or balance of power.”
For his part, Macron has quickly and quietly amassed an authority that Trump could only dream of possessing. In a country where the executive is already stronger than in many of its Western counterparts, the new president will govern largely with a coalition entirely of his own creation — with deputies he himself hand-selected. The new party that Macron created — “En Marche!” (Onward) — bears his initials, which some see as Macron placing himself at the center of political life. The French media has likened him to a “Jupiter” in the Elysee Palace and called him the “sun president,” a playful recasting of the “sun king,” another name for Louis XIV, France’s iconic monarch.
Last week, Macron gave a 90-minute address to both houses of Parliament at Versailles and announced his intent to get rid of one-third of France’s 577 parliamentary deputies, in front of the very deputies whose positions would conceivably be eliminated.
“The French people have shown their impatience with a political world made up of sterile quarrels and hollow ambitions in which we have lived up until now,” Macron said.
It was a more poetic version of Trump’s popular rallying cry: “Drain the swamp!”
When Trump and Macron stand side-by-side — as they did during a news conference on Thursday afternoon in a gilded ballroom at Paris’s Elysee Palace — it can be difficult to spot any similarities.
Trump towers over Macron but often slumped or leaned heavily on his lectern with his suit jacket unbuttoned, his hair a bit unruly and his face in a scowl. He agreed to this trip at the last minute and showed up with an entourage that did not include anyone from the State Department — and he has yet to name an ambassador to France. He spoke in vague proclamations instead of specifics. “We will talk about that over the coming period of time,” he said of his decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate accord. “And if it happens, that’ll be wonderful. And if it doesn’t, that’ll be OK, too. But we’ll see what happens.”
Meanwhile, Macron wore a closely tailored dark suit that was buttoned and he stood at perfect attention, his hair neatly in place. He prepares extensively for public appearances such as this one and filled his remarks with purposeful talking points, speaking with precision — and, at times, in English. Macron went out of his way to avoid conflict with Trump or highlight their differences, despite the U.S. president’s deep unpopularity in France.
Earlier in the afternoon, Trump and first lady Melania Trump met with Macron and his wife at Les Invalides, a historic complex in central Paris that is home to Napoleon Bonaparte’s tomb. As the two couples exchanged pleasantries, Trump sized up Brigitte Macron and commented: “You’re in such good shape.” He then repeated the comment to President Macron, who has proudly filled half his cabinet positions with women and insisted on absolute gender parity for his party’s ticket in France’s recent parliamentary elections.
From there, the two traveled to Elysee Palace to meet one-on-one and then discussed terrorism and other pressing issues with their top aides.
On the campaign trail, Trump promised to “bomb the s—” out of the Islamic State, seize oil from land it controls, kill the relatives of suspected terrorists and bring back waterboarding. In December 2015, Trump proposed temporarily banning all foreign Muslims from entering the United States, and, as president, he signed two executive orders that tried to temporarily limit the entrance of people from several predominantly Muslim countries.
Macron was accused of being too soft on terrorism during the French campaign, a charge that has vanished in his first few months as president.
He stunned French liberals — many of whom supported him in the election — when he proposed making permanent some portions of French law that grants the government a host of temporary powers during times of crisis to ensure national security.