“My dear Tony, I’m really very happy to welcome you to Paris,” Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said as he opened talks with Blinken in an ornate room of the Quai d’Orsay. Blinken greeted Le Drian in French before switching to English for the benefit of the rest of the US delegation. “Together we have an opportunity to demonstrate our democracies can deliver real results,” he added, echoing a common theme for Biden. Blinken travelled to Paris from Germany, which hailed a revival of relations after the turbulence under Trump. Chancellor Angela Merkel said she saw a growing consensus with the United States on China and Russia, despite Berlin’s generally more cooperative stances with the two powers.

Source: The Local June 25, 2021 09:56 UTC