The state visit of King Charles III and Camilla, the Queen Consort, to France has been postponed after a request by President Emmanuel Macron. The three-day trip to Paris and Bordeaux had been due to begin on Sunday, but both cities were caught up in violence on Thursday, some of the worst since demonstrations began in January.
Buckingham Palace said the decision to postpone the visit was due to the “situation in France”. President Macron said that from the moment on Thursday night when unions announced a 10th national day of action for Tuesday, two days into the state visit, it would be inappropriate for the King and Camilla to travel. The UK government added the decision had been “taken with the consent of all parties”, and France proposed moving the trip to early summer, “when things calm down again”.
The decision is a significant loss of face for France and for President Macron. This was supposed to have been a showcase for France, introducing the new monarch to the best of French life and cementing a newly awakened friendship. The president’s opponents on the left and right reacted fast, with Eric Ciotti of the Republicans saying the cancellation brought “shame on our country” while Jean-Luc Mélenchon on the far left was delighted the “meeting of kings at Versailles” had been broken up.
The protests had made the trip impossible. Several French cities saw violence on the sidelines of Thursday’s largely peaceful demonstrations that attracted more than a million people. The entrance to the town hall in Bordeaux was set alight, while in Paris, tear gas was fired and Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said 903 fires were lit. Hundreds of police officers were hurt across France, but protesters were injured by stun grenades and the Council of Europe said there was no justification for “excessive force” by authorities.
For much of Friday morning, French officials had sought to reassure the public that the state visit would go ahead and that security was in place. This was a hugely important trip for the King: a first state visit, and to one of the UK’s closest and oldest allies. The King and Camilla were due to ride along the Champs-Elysées in Paris and have a banquet at Versailles with President Macron, while Camilla was expected to open an art exhibition at one of the main Paris attractions, the Musée d’Orsay. They were then expected to head to Bordeaux.
However, facing the prospect of showing the King through rubbish and graffiti-strewn streets, with every public appearance smothered in security, and every movement threatened by strikes, President Macron made the obvious choice. Domestically, the image would have played badly for him. Dining with a king in Versailles would have been jarringly inappropriate and could have played rather too directly into the hands of his detractors.
The trip to Bordeaux, originally intended to focus on organic vineyards, went up in flames. The town hall, its front door set alight on Thursday, was due to be part of the visit. A TV interview that President Macron gave on the eve of Thursday’s national action appeared to galvanise protesters, when he described the government’s reforms as an economic necessity, saying he was prepared to accept the resulting unpopularity.
The postponement will be highly embarrassing for President Macron, but it will also be disappointing for King Charles. State visits are made on the advice of the government, and all the background briefing had been that this was an important diplomatic statement about rebuilding relationships with European neighbours. The King and Camilla were due to travel from France to Germany on Wednesday; Charles’s first state visit will instead begin in Berlin.