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Macron to visit London in first trip since pandemic
LONDON, June 12, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – French President Emmanuel Macron
will meet Britain’s Prince Charles when he visits London next week,
his first trip abroad since the new coronavirus crisis, officials said
Friday.
Macron will come to London on Thursday to commemorate the 80th
anniversary of former French president Charles de Gaulle’s appeal to
French people to resist the Nazi occupation during World War II.
He will award the Legion of Honour to London, making it the seventh
city to be decorated with France’s highest order of merit, after
Algiers, Belgrade, Brazzaville, Liege, Luxembourg and Volgograd.
The trip abroad will be Macron’s first since he travelled to Naples
for a French-Italian summit on February 27, weeks before Europe’s
borders closed to help halt the spread of the virus.
Prince Charles, who is in line to succeed Britain’s Queen Elizabeth
II, and his wife Camilla will be the first members of the royal family
to leave lockdown and attend a major event.
Charles himself contracted COVID-19 and was forced to self-isolate
at his mother’s sprawling Balmoral estate in northeast Scotland.
France and Britain have been heavily hit by the pandemic,
officially reporting 70,000 deaths between them.
Britain this week introduced a mandatory 14-day quarantine for most
travellers coming from abroad. The measures are designed to prevent
new infections from abroad.
But the French leader will be exempt, Prime Minister Boris
Johnson’s spokesman told reporters on Friday.
“As we set out in the guidelines when they were published, the
French delegation will fall within the exempted category of
representatives of a foreign country or territory travelling to
undertake business in the UK.”
BSS/AFP/MRU/2255hrs