NEW ORLEANS — Serenaded by a jazz band on the airport, cheered by crowds as he strolled via the French Quarter and even trying a couple of dance steps, President Emmanuel Macron plunged into essentially the most French of American cities on Friday, the final lap of his state go to to america.
After a state dinner and an intense day of diplomacy in Washington, the place President Biden and Mr. Macron on Thursday discovered an unusual unity of function on the battle in Ukraine and financial challenges stemming from it, the go to to New Orleans appeared to supply a tonic to a frontrunner whose second time period that started in Might has proved troublesome.
“It’s regenerative,” mentioned Catherine Colonna, the French international minister, as she watched Mr. Macron greeting folks. “Any true politician loves a crowd.”
After all a crowd can do sudden issues. Mr. Macron instantly had the historical past that drew him to New Orleans thrown in his face as he strolled down St. Peter’s Avenue, off Jackson Sq..
“You fool, you offered Louisiana for a mouthful of bread!” mentioned Esther Dahan, raised in Casablanca and a fluent French speaker, as Mr. Macron shook her hand.
“I do know,” the president mentioned, smiling a little bit wistfully and shaking his head.
Ms. Dahan was referring to the Louisiana Buy of 1803 beneath which an enormous sweep of territory was offered by France to america for a little bit over $27 million. The sale, at about 3 cents an acre, practically doubled the scale of america and propelled the younger nation towards turning into a continental energy.
On the flowery ironwork balconies of the French Quarter, crowds waved at Mr. Macron. Some yelled “Allez Les Bleus!” — a reference to the French World Cup soccer group, now certified for the spherical of 16. Requested why she thought Mr. Macron had come right here, Denise Minvielle, descended from French grandparents, mentioned: “As a result of it’s the most effective place on earth!”
A number of cities, together with Chicago, Atlanta and Los Angeles, had been thought of as doable second locations throughout the go to, French officers mentioned. However Mr. Macron, along with his sturdy sense of historical past, favored New Orleans, final visited by a French president, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, in 1976.
With comparatively new leaders governing in Germany, Italy and Britain, Mr. Macron, 44, is as near the doyen of European politics as anybody will get, his restlessness and questing thoughts a stimulus to some, a provocation to others.
One minute he insists that Russia should at some point turn out to be a part of Europe’s “strategic structure,” the subsequent he dwells on the unacceptable, “imperial” aggression of President Vladimir V. Putin, which mustn’t ever be allowed to face. One minute he declares NATO “mind useless,” as he did in 2019, the subsequent he hails the inviolable energy of the alliance.
On this go to, he went in simply two days from suggesting Mr. Biden’s financial insurance policies may “fragment the West” as a result of subsidies beneath the Inflation Discount Act represent unfair competitors, to saying variations can be labored out and Franco-American friendship was unbreakable.
He’s endlessly testing new concepts and altering tack. He’s not known as the “at-the-same-time” president for nothing. His disruption since turning into French chief on the age of 39 has nearly destroyed the center-left and center-right events that have been the inspiration of postwar French politics — the Socialists and the Republicans.
However having misplaced his parliamentary majority within the April elections, and misplaced his sheen to many French folks after bursting on the scene in 2017, he has been casting round for political course because the Ukraine battle and fruitless makes an attempt to finish it occupy a lot of his time.
A heat American reception and sudden, if extremely conditional, backing from Mr. Biden for his outreach to Mr. Putin, have due to this fact been notably welcome. He can now go dwelling to Paris along with his diplomacy a minimum of partially vindicated and America’s oldest alliance reaffirmed.
Mr. Macron has been relentlessly attacked in France, by the left for favoring the wealthy and proposing to boost the retirement age progressively to 65 from 62; and by the fitting for being comfortable on immigration. In america, nonetheless, he has gone a great distance towards overcoming tensions over the financial system and the way greatest to finish the battle.
Welcoming Mr. Macron in midafternoon on Thursday to an extended delayed lunch on the State Division, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken deadpanned: “Good night.”
When the laughter subsided, he described the French chief standing subsequent to him, as a person of “distinctive imaginative and prescient” and “a galvanizing pressure for all of us, all of our companions. We couldn’t do with out it.”
Simply how a lot of a political animal Mr. Macron is was shortly obvious on the lunch hosted by Mr. Blinken and Vice President Kamala Harris. Shelling out with notes, talking in English, explaining that his assembly with President Biden took three hours as a result of “we fastened all the pieces,” Mr. Macron composed an improvised hymn to the “distinctive bond” between america and France.
If some folks discover the 2 nations “too proud or too self-confident,” Mr. Macron advised, it was as a result of “we completely imagine we’re charged with defending sure common values,” like the freedom that younger American troopers defended as they died on European soil “they’d by no means recognized earlier than.”
“We are going to always remember that,” he mentioned.
On the delayed lunch, Mr. Macron additionally thanked america for its “unequaled dedication and funding” in supporting the folks of Ukraine on the strategy of winter. From the main proponent of European “strategic autonomy,” an concept that has typically irked the Biden administration, this seemed to be a very beneficiant endorsement of America’s very important position in Europe.
From the battle, Mr. Macron turned to home politics, noting what he known as the “resurgence of racism and hate speech” in Western societies. He thanked america for turning away from “the demagogues.”
In all his backs-and-forth, Mr. Macron has by no means wavered on one factor: the central significance of the combat in opposition to far-right nationalism and the French dedication to the European Union, a bulwark of postwar democracy and freedom on the continent. As america lurched to former president Donald Trump, and Britain to Brexit, he stood twice between France and a victory of Marine Le Pen’s far-right Nationwide Rally get together.
This was notably vital to Mr. Biden, who likes to say that the world is at a tipping level between democracy and rising autocracy.
Whereas in New Orleans, Mr. Macron met with Elon Musk. Officers mentioned the assembly, which was not on his official agenda, got here on the request of Mr. Musk, whom Mr. Macron met twice whereas he was financial system minister between 2014 and 2016 however by no means beforehand as president.
Mr. Macron mentioned in a tweet: “In conformity with our ambition to turn out to be carbon impartial and re-industrialize France and Europe, I spoke at this time with Elon Musk about future inexperienced industrial tasks, notably the fabrication of electrical automobiles in Europe and batteries.”
On Friday night, Mr. Macron delivered a speech on the New Orleans Museum of Artwork, wherein he mentioned he felt that he was again dwelling. “There’s what I’d name a well-recognized strangeness about this metropolis,” he mentioned, including that “our language and our historical past are right here.”
It appears that evidently that is what Mr. Macron sought in coming to New Orleans, one of the vital European of American cities. One French pupil, Thibault Boyer, 20, who’s learning engineering on the College of New Orleans, mentioned he was delighted to alternate a couple of phrases with the president.
“It is unusual that I had extra probability to fulfill him right here than again dwelling in Paris,” he mentioned. “I by no means anticipated that.”