In Paris, Trump is Bastille Day guest of city he derided
PARIS — President Donald Trump’s visit to Paris on Thursday will take him to a city he has repeatedly derided — and at the side of a French leader best known to Americans as the earnest young man with the endless handshake.
“Paris isn’t Paris any longer,” Trump declared in February, implying the city had been ruined by jihadi attacks. “I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris,” he said just last month as he announced the U.S. would leave the Paris climate agreement.
But Trump isn’t the only politician who can use Paris to make a symbolic point.
When Trump arrives in the French capital, it will be as French President Emmanuel Macron’s guest of honour, with a private tour of Napoleon’s tomb, dinner at the Eiffel Tower and, to top off the Paris tourist trifecta, a seat at the tribune as American troops open the Bastille Day parade on the Champs-Elysees.