PARIS, Nov 10, 2021 (BSS/AFP) - US Vice President Kamala Harris meets with
French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday in a further effort to mend
relations with Paris after a crisis sparked by a cancelled submarines
contract.

  Harris is set to sit down with Macron from 1700 GMT at the presidential
palace on Wednesday on the second day of a four-day trip to France.

  She is scheduled to attend a peace forum with other world leaders on
Thursday, and an international conference on Libya on Friday.

  Her trip comes after a huge Franco-American row erupted in September when
Australia walked out of a multibillion-dollar submarines deal with Paris in
favour of an alternative one with the United States.

  During a tour on Tuesday of the famed Pasteur Institute in Paris, where
Harris' mother conducted cancer research in the 1980s, the vice-president
compared politics to scientific research -- and cooking.

  "There will be glitches and there will be mistakes," she said. "If you
don't make the same mistake twice... that's a good process and we should
encourage it."

  As she arrived on Tuesday, she said she was "looking forward to many, many
days of productive discussions reinforcing the strength of our relationship."

  The visit was announced after the subs row, and comes after Secretary of
State Antony Blinken was dispatched in early October in a first attempt to
fix the crisis.

  President Joe Biden also sought to make amends over the dispute at a
meeting with Macron last month, telling the French leader that his government
had been "clumsy" in the way it secured the submarines deal with Australia.

  The deal, knowns as AUKUS, is part of a new strategic alliance between the
United States, Australia and Britain.

  Paris was left furious after Australia secretly negotiated to buy the US-
designed nuclear submarines before ditching a $60 billion deal struck with
French defence contractor Naval Group.

  Harris and Macron are expected to discuss US support for France's military
mission against jihadists in the Sahel, as well as French-backed plans to
beef up European defence capabilities.