The gesture is rare enough to be worth a mention: Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will travel to meet with Emmanuel Macron in Belém, the capital of the Amazonian state of Para, on the first day of the French president's three-day state visit to Brazil, Tuesday, March 26. Even at 78, the left-wing leader did not hesitate to make the 1,600-kilometer journey to personally welcome his guest. It is a sign of the importance of Macron's visit, and of the warming relations between the two countries.
You'd have to go back eight long years, to 2016 and François Hollande's term in office, to find the last visit by a French president to Brazil (and even to 2013 for a state visit, also by Hollande). This is mostly due to the tumultuous presidency of Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2023), who had copiously insulted Macron and his wife during an unprecedented diplomatic crisis in 2019, as fires were raging in the Amazon.
For Macron, the goal is to gain a foothold in Latin America, a region largely neglected by French diplomacy since he came to power, but also to show his closeness to Lula. The two men have already met on several occasions and regularly sit side by side at international events, when seating is arranged by alphabetical order. That was the case at the coronation of King Charles III in May 2023. The two presidents exchanged handshakes, pats on the back, and bursts of laughter.
Macron has never stopped courting his Brazilian counterpart. As early as November 2021, he received Lula, who was still a presidential candidate, at the Elysée Palace, complete with a red carpet and the Republican Guard. Macron was one of the first to congratulate Lula on his electoral victory on October 30, 2022, over the far-right Bolsonaro. Lula was also one of the stars of the Paris summit for a new global financing pact, in June 2023.
On the surface, however, the two men are poles apart. What do the glabrous 46-year-old former banker and the bearded 78-year-old former metalworker have in common? The Frenchman was elected president on his first attempt in 2017, taking advantage of the collapse of traditional parties. The Brazilian had to try four times to win, having founded and consolidated Latin America's largest left-wing party, the Workers' Party (PT).
In reality, "Macron and Lula have a lot more in common than one might imagine," said Rubens Ricupero, 87, one of Brazil's most experienced diplomats and a former minister of finance. "They are both mavericks, who in diplomacy like to adopt provocative and sometimes radical positions." Take for example the French president's statements on the conflict in Ukraine and his recent suggestion about potentially sending troops in support of Kyiv; or Lula's remarks on the war in Gaza, which he recently compared to the Holocaust.
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