China's Xi arrives in France for state visit
Voice of America
China's President Xi Jinping and his wife Peng Liyuan wave upon their arrival for an official two-day state visit at Orly airport, south of Paris on May 5, 2024. France's Prime Minister Gabriel Attal (L) greets China's President Xi Jinping upon his arrival for an official two-day state visit, at Orly airport, south of Paris on May 5, 2024.
Chinese President Xi Jinping on Sunday arrived in France on a state visit hosted by Emmanuel Macron where the French leader will seek to push his counterpart on issues ranging from Ukraine to trade. Xi's arrival for the visit marking 60 years of diplomatic relations between France and China was the start of his first trip to Europe since 2019 which will also see him visit Serbia and Hungary. But Xi's choice of France as the sole major European power to visit indicates the relative warmth in Sino-French relations since Macron made his own state visit to China in April 2023 and acknowledges the French leader's stature as an EU powerbroker. Chinese state broadcaster CCTV said the plane carrying Xi had touched down in Paris. The leader of the one-party Communist state of more than 1.4 billion people, accompanied by his wife Peng Liyuan, was to be welcomed at Paris Orly airport by Prime Minister Gabriel Attal.
A visitor walks along on a beach equipped with anti-landing barricades, with the Chinese city of Xiamen seen in the background, in the Taiwan-controlled Kinmen islands, in Kinmen on May 17, 2024. Tourists pose for photos as they visit a scenic spot on Pingtan island, the closest point in China to Taiwan’s main island, in Fujian province on May 18, 2024.
Monica Johnston, a burn and wound care nurse from the U.S. city of Portland, Oregon, with the Palestinian American Medical Association, monitors a patient who sustained major burns on May 8, 2024, in Khan Younis, Gaza. Dr. Ammar Ghanem of Detroit, volunteering with the Syrian American Medical Society, second from right, is pictured May 7, 2024, in Khan Younis, Gaza, with other doctors at the European General Hospital, where they had been since early May.
FILE - In this Oct. 7, 2014, photo, Turkish riot police use water cannons and tear gas to disperse people protesting against Turkey's policy in Syria, in Diyarbakir, Turkey. FILE - Youths set fire to barricades within sight of Turkish army tanks stationed in Diyarbakir, hours after violent protests by Kurds over the Islamic State group's advance on Kobani, Syria, Oct. 8, 2014.