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France inaugurates Sunday a week of commemorations of the First World War. Some 80 leaders from around the world are preparing to fly to a ceremony marking the 100th anniversary of the silence of firearms.
French President Emmanuel Macron is preparing for a busy diplomatic week that will allow him to welcome personalities such as US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.
It will also crisscross northern France, visiting the battlefields where hundreds of thousands of men have lost their lives in the trenches.
Macron will use the international spotlight to launch a rallying cry against populism – in the presence of "America First" Trump and other nationalist leaders.
The commemorations will end with a ceremony at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris on November 11, which will be attended by dozens of leaders, including Trump, Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, a hundred years after the armistice.
The ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier on Avenue des Champs-Elysees will run under increased security following a series of lethal jihadist attacks in France over the past three years.
The commemorative ceremonies begin on Sunday 3 November with a concert celebrating the friendship between the former enemies of war, France and Germany, in the border town of Strasbourg, in the presence of Macron and German President Frank -Walter Steinmeier.
Macron will then spend the week on the battlefields of the Western Front, from Verdun to the Somme.
Tuesday, in the honor of the "black army" of former colonial troops who fought alongside the French, the President of Mali, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, will travel to Reims, a city defended by the African soldiers.
British Prime Minister Theresa May will join Macron in the Somme on Friday, while on Saturday she will travel to the village of Rethondes, where the armistice was signed, with Merkel.
– Macron's war against nationalism –
On the sidelines of the commemoration of the war, Macron should use its journey in the north of France to reach areas hard hit by industrial decline, where the far-right leader Marine Le Pen recorded an excellent performance in the presidential election of last year.
"After paying tribute to those who have died for their country, social and economic problems will be brought back," said Bruno Cautres of the CEVIPOF political think tank.
Macron – who has struggled to portray himself as a "president of the rich" – will cross 17 cities, bringing together his weekly cabinet meeting Wednesday in the war-torn region of the Ardennes, which is currently experiencing an unemployment rate high.
The 40-year-old president, whose approval rate is around 21%, according to a YouGov A survey released Thursday, dismissed rumors that he would be exhausted.
He sparked many speculations by taking a few days off before the tour, which, according to his aides, would insist on gathering his energy before an intense week of diplomacy.
This week is an opportunity for the centrist to "reflect a strong presidential image" both at home and abroad, Cautres said.
Macron is ready to use his speeches to pound home warnings about the dangers of nationalism at a time when populists are marching around Europe and beyond.
In an interview on Thursday, he said that Europe was at risk of returning in the 1930s due to the spread of a "leprosy" nationalist on the continent.
"I am struck by the similarities between our time and the two world wars," he told reporters. West France newspaper.
"In a Europe divided by fears, the return of nationalism and the consequences of the economic crisis, we see almost systematically all that marked Europe between the end of the First World War and the (economic) crisis of 1929 ".
Macron is trying to position itself as a champion of centrist politics and multilateralism in the run-up to the May European parliamentary elections, saying that he expects the duel to unfold between "progressives" and "progressives". nationalists ".
Following the ceremony next Sunday, world leaders will attend a three-day peace forum opened by Merkel, an event that France wants to turn into an annual multilateral peace conference.
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