Emmanuel Macron has asked Britain’s King Charles III to cancel his trip to France – the first state visit of his reign – as the President struggles to contain nationwide civil unrest amid rioting, looting and mass protests, ostensibly over his pension reforms, but possibly more rooted in racial disunity.
King Charles was due to arrive in Paris with his consort Camilla on Sunday for the four-day trip with the highlight being a state banquet at Versailles on Monday night.
However, Macron’s aides reportedly raised fears that the event could stir up revolutionaries given the chateau’s links to the 1789 Revolution and the last king of France Louis XVI and his wife Marie-Antoinette, who were guillotined in 1793.
Macron reportedly telephoned the monarch this morning to ask him to stay in the UK following a call to 10 Downing Street with the same advice.
Image: Par Kremlin.ru, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=59442545
