La Marseillaise, the French national anthem, rang out under a gloomy sky during the sober welcome. Javier Milei, Argentina's far-right libertarian president, welcomed French President Emmanuel Macron with distant warmth on Sunday, November 17, in Buenos Aires. The two men posed together in the "white room" of the Argentine presidency, in the company of French First Lady Brigitte Macron and Karina Milei, the Argentine leader's influential sister and secretary general of the presidency. Without a word to the press.
Almost everything opposes the two men, who are nevertheless seeking to establish contact. Since his arrival in power in December 2023, Milei had already spoken face-to-face with the French president, in Paris on July 26, at the opening of the Olympic Games. This time, Macron, on his way to the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Monday and Tuesday, decided to pay a late visit to his Argentine counterpart, who had just returned from a meeting with Donald Trump on November 14 at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
The "Trump of the pampas" was the first foreign leader to meet the Republican US president-elect since his landslide victory on November 5. He claims to be ideologically close to the US billionaire and wants to align his diplomacy with his, particularly in support of Israel.
As soon as they stepped off the plane on Saturday, Milei and Macron dined privately, without advisers, at the Argentine president's residence, a little way from the capital. While negotiations on climate issues are expected to be tense in Rio, on the sidelines of COP29 in Baku, the Argentine president has made no secret of his climate-skeptic stance, in tune with Trump's, to the point that uncertainty remains over his country's continued membership of the Paris Agreement. "We had a debate, but that doesn't mean we agree," the French president acknowledged after their meeting, just before boarding a plane for Brazil.
Ahead of the G20 Summit in Rio, Argentina refused to sign a United Nations (UN) resolution aimed at stepping up the fight against online violence against women. It was the only country in the world to vote against it. For Macron, these disagreements should not prevent him from talking with his counterpart, especially at a time when Trump's election risks distancing Milei from European positions for a long time to come.
The French president's brief visit to Buenos Aires wasn't without ulterior economic motives, at a time when the Argentine president, a proponent of economic deregulation, is trying to attract foreign investment. The French group Eramet has just inaugurated a new lithium extraction plant in Argentina, where the mineral is abundant in the subsoil. Paris is also keen to deepen cooperation with Buenos Aires in the defense sector and still hopes to sell it Scorpene submarines.
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