Spotlights took over from the sun as night fell. Neither Emmanuel Macron nor Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, known as "Lula," skimped on the staging, which looked a tad outlandish in the middle of the jungle. The French president, who had just arrived from French Guiana, and his Brazilian host, who had come to welcome him in Belem, the capital of the state of Para, in northern Brazil. On Tuesday, March 26, the two leaders met on the island of Combu, opposite the city, in the presence of Indigenous Chief Raoni Metuktire, who was made a knight of France's Legion of Honor for the occasion. "I consider Lula as my brother, Macron as my son," said the nonagenarian. In the early hours of this state visit to Brazil, the two presidents took advantage of the opportunity to show that, while they do not agree on the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, they are prepared to form a common front on climate issues.

After a tête-à-tête, the first of several during the three-day state visit, Macron and Lula launched a joint appeal to make the fight against climate change a "strategic priority." In doing so, the French president lent his support to his counterpart in the run-up to COP30, which Brazil plans to host in Belem in 2025. According to René Poccard, an expert with the Center for International Cooperation in Agronomic Research for Development in Amazonia, the two leaders "have a shared interest in being at the forefront of the fight against deforestation and fighting for the rights of Indigenous peoples, in order to protect the Amazon but also to send a signal to their respective electorates."

For Macron, it's a question of not repeating the faux pas of the past, at a time when he intends to deepen ties with Brazil to carry weight in the face of the countries of the Global South. In August 2019, the French president had a vicious exchange with Lula's far-right predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro, over fires in the Amazon. He then called for an international mobilization on the South American rainforest, during the G7 summit in Biarritz, in the absence of any Brazilian representative. This attitude shocked the entire Brazilian political spectrum, including the left, which is very sensitive about Brazilian sovereignty over the Amazon.

While Macron's environmental record is disputed in France, Lula considers himself in a strong position in this field. A total of 5,152 square kilometers of forest were destroyed in the Brazilian Amazon in 2023, the year of his return to power, a spectacular 50% drop compared to 2022. After Bolsonaro's administration, marked by the ransacking of the rainforest, Lula set himself the goal of "zero deforestation" by 2030. "He's fighting with us, but has to deal with Congress and the elected representatives close to Bolsonaro, who represent agribusiness," said Watatakalu Yawalapiti, an Indigenous leader who attended Raoni's award ceremony.

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