Biden Macron news: President and Jill Biden host administration’s first state dinner with French guests

American Osetra caviar, butter-poached lobster from Maine, beef, and California wines will be presented before Emmanuel Macron for a state dinner hosted by president Joe Biden for his French counterpart.

The Biden family and the Macrons will be part of a red, white and blue-themed gathering at a pavilion set up on the South Lawn of the White House for the first state visit hosted by the American president since he was elected to the office in 2021.

The menu, released in advance of the dinner to be served to 300-400 guests on Thursday, showed the gathering will dine on shallot marmalade, a selection of cheese from three different states, potatoes and beef, and wash it down with wines from California.

My colleague Alisha Rahaman Sarkar reports:

Presidents Joe Biden and Emmanuel Macron are celebrating the longstanding US-French relationship – but these are friends with differences. The French president is using his visit to Washington to sharply criticise aspects of the US president’s signature climate law as a bad deal for Europe.

French president made clear that he and other European leaders remain deeply concerned about the incentives in a sweeping new climate-related law that favour American-made climate technology, including electric vehicles.

Mr Macron yesterday criticised the legislation, known as the Inflation Reduction Act, during a luncheon with US lawmakers and again during a speech at the French embassy. The French president said that while the Biden administration’s efforts to curb climate change should be applauded, the subsidies will be an enormous setback for European companies.

“The choices that have been made ... are choices that will fragment the West,” Mr Macron said at the French embassy.

He added that the legislation “creates such differences between the United States of America and Europe that all those who work in many companies (in the US), they will just think, ‘We don’t make investments anymore on the other side of the Atlantic.’”

What can we expect from the French president’s state visit? It is Emmanuel Macron’s second state visit to the US in four years, and according to our DC correspondent, Andrew Feinberg, there’s a key reason for this meeting.

Read the full story here.

Whole Foods will stop procuring Maine lobsters from 15 December, but sell the remainder of its supply, the grocery chain has said.

The contentious ban has sparked an outcry from Maine’s elected officials and the lobster industry.

Four members of Maine’s congressional delegation criticised the decision in a strongly worded statement.

“We are disappointed by Whole Foods’ decision and deeply frustrated that the Marine Stewardship Council’s suspension of the lobster industry’s certificate of sustainability continues to harm the livelihoods of hardworking men and women up and down Maine’s coast,” said senators Susan Collins and Angus King, and representatives Chellie Pingree and Jared Golden, along with Maine governor Janet Mills.

Mr Golden, a Democrat, took to Twitter to further criticised the administration.

“If the Biden White House can prioritize purchasing 200 Maine lobsters for a fancy dinner, @POTUS should also take the time to meet with the Maine lobstermen his administration is currently regulating out of business,” Mr Golden wrote on Wednesday evening.

The tweet was in addition to earlier criticism of Mr Biden from Mr Golden. On 5 October, Mr Golden sent a letter to the president outlining the “repercussions of his failure to protect Maine lobsterman as promised and urging him to oppose the right whale conservation measures currently proposed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,” according to a press release.

“Given what we know — and what the data clearly demonstrates — about the low risk of Maine’s lobster fishery relative to other activities in right whale habitat, I cannot comprehend how you can stand idly by and not oppose in the strongest terms a proposal that has the potential to destroy thousands of livelihoods, hundreds of coastal communities, and the economic backbone of our state and the New England region,” Mr Golden wrote in the letter. “Your complicity thus far is a slap in the face to thousands of working people who are confronting the uncertainty of whether or not they can continue to provide for their families, that their communities will survive, and that their children will be able to continue Maine’s long-standing lobstering heritage.”

The Bidens and the Macrons had dinner at a Michelin-star restaurant in Washington DC on Wednesday night ahead of the state dinner this evening.

The couples visited Fiola Mare, an Italian restaurant on the Potomac River in the Georgetown neighbourhood of Washington, DC where the entrees, such as pasta and seafood, cost between $50 and $150.

In an image tweeted by the president’s account, the group can be seen smiling for the camera.

The Elysée said the gifts offered to Mr Biden included “a vinyl and CD of the original soundtrack of Claude Lelouch’s film Un Homme et une Femme” from 1966 with music by French composer Francis Lai.

“This is the film that President Joe Biden and Mrs Jill Biden went to see on their first date,” the Elysée noted.

The gift list also included “a cup from the house Christofle, created in 2012, in tribute to the great era when Christofle crossed the Atlantic aboard the ship Normandie. This cup symbolizes the first links between France and the United States of America”.

“The cup integrates in the bottom of it the ‘Présidence de la République’ lictor beam,” the administration said.

“A sweater from the House Saint James” and “a watch from LIP Horlogerie” was also received by the US.

“Gifts offered by Pdt Macron to Dr Jill Biden” included Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert and The Plague, The Fall, Exile and the Kingdom, and Selected Essays by Albert Camus.

Vice President Kamala Harris was given “a model of the Ariane 5 rocket,” the Elysée said.

The gifts are received by the US and will be handled by the National Archives unless bought by the Bidens and Ms Harris.

President Joe Biden welcomed French President Emmanuel Macron, calling France an “essential” ally.

“The alliance between our two nations remains essential,” Mr Biden said on the South Lawn of the White House on Thursday, adding that “we are at an inflexion point in history”.

“The temperature may be a little chilly on this December day but our hearts are warm to welcome such close friends to the White House. President Macron and Brigitte, members of the French delegation, distinguished guests – It’s an honour, a genuine honour to host you for the first state visit of my administration and to celebrate the endurance, strength and vitality of the great friendship between France and the United States of America,” Mr Biden said, adding that France is the US’ “oldest ally” and “unwavering partner”.

“President Macron heard me speak before about the inflection point we stand at in history and how the choices we make today and in the years ahead, will determine the course of our world for decades to come. And the United States could not ask for a better partner in this work than France. For centuries, we’ve come together, charted a course toward a world of greater freedom, greater opportunity, greater dignity and greater peace,” the president added.

The White House detailed the Bidens’ gifts to the French president on Thursday.

“As the official gift, the President and Dr Biden presented a custom mirror made of fallen wood from the White House grounds by an American furniture maker which is a reproduction of a mirror from the White House collection and hangs in the West Wing,” the administration said.

“President Biden also gifted President Macron a custom vinyl record collection of great American musicians and an archival facsimile print of Thomas Edison’s 1877 Patent of the American Phonograph,” they added. “Dr Biden gifted Mrs Macron a gold and Emerald pendant necklace designed by a French-American designer.”

Mr Biden was asked by a reporter why Mr Macron was the first world leader to be invited for a US state visit.

“Because he is my friend,” Mr Biden said.

During his speech on the South Lawn, Mr Biden said that “our history has been shaped by the courage of the women and men who crossed the Atlantic” and “carried within their hearts” the “flame of liberty”.

“Today that flame burns more brightly than ever,” he added. “And the alliance between our two nations remains essential to our mutual defence. As allies in NATO together with our European Union and the G-7 and partners around the world, France and the United States are facing down Vladimir Putin’s grasping ambition for conquest and Russia’s brutal war against Ukraine, which has once more shattered peace on the continent of Europe.”