French President Emmanuel Macron, who has criticised Brazil for not doing enough to protect the Amazon, has paid a three-day visit to the South American country. Together with President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, he presented a billion-euro green investment plan for the rainforest, RFI repots.
Lula met Macron in Belem, near the mouth of the Amazon River, where the pair visited conservation parks with sustainable development projects and met with indigenous leaders. Brazil’s top diplomat for Europe and North America, Maria Luisa Escorel, said:
Lula wants to show Macron the complexity of the Amazon, which is not just a vast rainforest but also a place where 25 million people live.
Escorel said the French government will help fund sustainable development programmes in the Amazon and the fight against deforestation.
Lula and Macron discussed a common course on combating climate change and poverty as Brazil prepares to host the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro in November and UN climate talks in Belem next year – both of which the French president will attend.
Brazilian and French officials say the stalled trade agreement between the European Union and South America’s Mercosur common market will not be on the agenda because it is not a bilateral issue.
Macron is facing pressure from French farmers to cancel the agreement, which has been negotiated for two decades. Brazil, for its part, is unhappy with EU legislation passed last year that bans imports of coffee, beef, soya and other goods if they are linked to recent deforestation.
Brazil and France already cooperate on nuclear power, renewable energy, defence technology and technological innovation.
In 2008, Paris and Brasilia signed a strategic alliance in which France supported Brazil’s aspirations to become a global player on the international stage and its bid for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.
But during Jair Bolsonaro’s presidency in 2019-22, relations almost came to a standstill. In 2019, Macron led a wave of international pressure on Bolsonaro over fires raging in the Amazon. Bolsonaro accused Macron and other G7 countries of treating Brazil as a “colony” and said he would only accept $20 million in G7 aid to fight fires in the Amazon rainforest if French President Emmanuel Macron backed down from criticism.
Under President Lula da Silva, Brazil has re-engaged with France – particularly on green policies – and lucrative defence projects such as the Franco-Brazilian submarine development programme have been extended.
