As U.S. President Donald Trump touches down for France's most important national holiday today, French protesters have organized a series of events in protest of the U.S. president that will last into Bastille Day on Friday.
The group "Paris Against Trump" announced a series of events including "No Trump zones" in the Place de la Republique and a "Don't Let Your Guard Down Against Trump" march that will begin at the Place de Clichy on Friday, as reported by NBC News.
"Trump is not welcome in Paris," said the group's Facebook page. "We are opposed to his positions on the climate crisis, his international politics against migrants, his sexist speeches and behavior, his Islamophobia and racist remarks, his military plans around the world and his neo-liberalism and capitalism."
French President Emmanuel Macron invited Trump to France to celebrate July 14 Bastille Day festivities and to commemorate the 100 years since U.S. troops entered into World War One. Six weeks after welcoming Russia's Vladimir Putin to France at the Palace of Versailles, new French President Emmanuel Macron will use history and his country's grandeur to try to charm Donald Trump. In London, Berlin, Brussels and Paris, European leaders are wondering how best to handle the unpredictable U.S. president, whose nationalist "America First" agenda has upended assumptions about transatlantic relations.
The visit will gauge whether Trump and France's new leader can find consensus on any of the critical issues on which they find themselves deeply at odds. Trump's brief trip to France follows his attendance of the G20 meeting in Hamburg, Germany last week. The United States was left relatively isolated during the summit, when it reaffirmed Trump's decision to pull out of a landmark international accord reached in Paris in 2015 to fight climate change. After Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Paris climate accord agreement last month, Macron, a staunch advocate of research to combat global warming, beckoned "all responsible citizens," including American scientists and researchers, to bring their fight against climate change to France.
The president will mark the 100th anniversary of America's entry into World War I by visiting U.S. troops. White House officials are casting it as a celebration of the U.S.-French military alliance — both then and now.
Trump and Macron are scheduled to hold a joint news conference, during which Trump may face tough questions on the latest revelations about his son's contacts with a Russian lawyer. The two leaders and their wives will end a busy day of meetings with a lavish dinner at Jules Verne, at the top of the Eiffel Tower.
In the lead up to what will be Trump's first official visit to France, the White House chose to highlight areas where the two leaders can collaborate, and said their differences could foster more constructive dialogue. "Macron and the president have somewhat different views on how to achieve the end goal, but I think the end goal is the same," Trump's top economic adviser Gary Cohn said last week.
