Emmanuel Macron arrived in Brazil on Tuesday March 26 for a three-day visit intended to seal the reunion between the two countries. French President and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva have launched a program aimed at raising up to one billion euros in green investments in the Brazilian and Guyanese Amazon, the French presidency announced.

This announcement, made at the very beginning of Emmanuel Macron's state visit, is part of an international roadmap that the two heads of state intend to promote in the run-up to the COP30 which will be held in Belem (north of the Brazil) in 2025.

Coming from the French department of Guyana, Emmanuel Macron was welcomed around 4:30 p.m. (7:30 p.m. GMT) by his counterpart Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in Belém, a city in northern Brazil which will host COP30 in 2025.

Environment, defense, economy, geopolitics: the two presidents, who willingly showcase their complicity, intend to show an all-out rapprochement between France and the Latin American giant, a key player in the “Brics”, the bloc of emerging countries.

Near Belém, one of the large urban centers of the Amazon basin, the two heads of state traveled by boat to the island of Combu to visit a cocoa production micro-enterprise, intended to illustrate that economic development and protection of the environment can go hand in hand.

The world's largest rainforest plays a vital role against global warming by absorbing carbon emissions. Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon halved in 2023, a success for President Lula who promised to stop the phenomenon by 2030. In total, 5,152 km2 of forest were destroyed.

A highlight of this first day must be Emmanuel Macron's presentation of the Legion of Honor to indigenous leader Raoni Metuktire. This leader of the Kayapa people has become in recent decades the global icon of the defense of the Amazon. According to the Élysée, France wishes to honor “an international figure in the fight for the preservation of the Amazon forest and the culture of the first peoples”.

11:44

One-on-one © FRANCE 24

Turn the page Bolsonaro               

This is the first official trip by a French president to Brazil in eleven years. Emmanuel Macron intends to turn the page on the dark years of Jair Bolsonaro's far-right presidency (2019-2022). In the midst of the crisis over the fires in the Amazon, Jair Bolsonaro and his ministers made very derogatory, and even insulting, remarks towards President Macron and his wife.

“We are in a Franco-Brazilian moment,” welcomes the Élysée. “France is an essential actor, essential for Brazilian foreign policy,” adds Brazilian diplomacy.

After Belém, the French president will visit the Itaguai naval base (south-east) on Wednesday to highlight the defense partnership between the two countries.

The third of four conventionally powered submarines born from Franco-Brazilian cooperation will be launched on this occasion, in the presence of the two leaders. Brasilia could also call on Paris to help it develop nuclear propulsion on a fifth submarine. Such technology transfers, very sensitive in terms of sovereignty and non-proliferation, would represent a small revolution seen from France.

On Thursday, the French president will be welcomed in the capital Brasilia by Lula at the Planalto presidential palace for discussions dominated by major international issues.

If the two men want to push the ecological transition and the reform of international governance, there is no shortage of angry subjects. Starting with the free trade agreement between the European Union and Mercosur (Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Bolivia), a sea serpent that Paris is blocking against the backdrop of the agricultural crisis in Europe.

Emmanuel Macron should also recall the importance that the G20, chaired this year by Brazil, must continue to give to the war in Ukraine. Lula, who poses as champion of the "global South", insists for his part that responsibilities are shared in Ukraine, and refuses to take sides against Russia.

14:24

REPORTERS © FRANCE 24

With AFP

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