After Riot Disruption In France, King Charles Set To Visit In September

King Charles will travel to France in September after a scheduled visit in March was canceled due to protests against pension reforms.

The original three-day trip would have been Charles’s first overseas state visit since succeeding his late mother, Queen Elizabeth II, as sovereign.

However, social unrest prompted by French President Emmanuel Macron’s new pension law meant was postponed.

The Élysée palace said the King’s visit was an “honour”.

“It will bear witness to the depth of the historical ties that unite our two countries and our two peoples, and will contribute to honouring French excellence and know-how,” a statement said.

According to reports, King and his wife, Queen Camilla, had been scheduled to tour Paris and Bordeaux, the first leg of a trip that would also take in Germany.

The visit in March had been planned to take place shortly after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s participation in a Paris summit.

However, Mr Macron’s use of executive power to push through his proposed legislation to raise the age of retirement without a vote caused uproar in France with people taking to the streets across the country.

The largest protests took place in Paris, with police deploying tear gas against tens of thousands of people who occupied the Place de la Concorde. Clashes also took place in other major cities such as Marseille, Nantes, Amiens, and Dijon.

The ongoing unrest meant the trip was postponed, with the King and Queen flying straight to Germany instead, where the King made history by becoming the first UK monarch to address the German Bundestag while in session.

The royal couple also visited a Hamburg church destroyed in the Second World War, and the Kindertransport Memorial, a sculpture that commemorates the 1938 rescue and evacuation of about 10,000 Jewish children to Britain.

The rescheduled visit to France takes place between 20 and 22 September.

BBC