Macron offers elite horse to Xi
Print Edition
FRENCH President Emmanuel Macron went out of his way to win the heart of the Chinese leader on the first day of his state visit yester, offering President Xi Jinping a horse of the elite French Republican Guard.
An adept of soft diplomacy and symbols, Macron picked an 8-year old brown gelding named Vesuvius from the presidential cavalry corps and braved stringent Chinese quarantine checks to offer it to President Xi.
The choice of the gift, an “unprecedented diplomatic gesture” according to the French presidency, was made after the Chinese president expressed his fascination for the 104 horsemen who escorted him during his last visit to Paris in 2014.
It is the first time France has offered one of the elite cavalry corps’ horses and is also a response to China’s “panda diplomacy,” after Macron’s wife Brigitte became the godmother of a giant panda lent by China to a zoo near Paris.
“It mattered a lot for the president, even if it was very complicated to import a horse for sanitary reasons. It’s a symbol of French excellence,” an Elysee official said.
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