According to the Élysée Palace, the French president expressed his interest in the subject and mentioned a number of individual cases

During Chinese President Xi Jinping’s state visit to France, Emmanuel Macron raised the issue of human rights, in particular ‘a number of individual cases’, as the Élysée stated on Tuesday 7 May.

The French Presidency said: ‘The President raised the issue of human rights yesterday (Monday), expressing his interest in this matter and discussing a few individual cases. We are talking to each other about it and we are checking the results with a desire to be effective”, as the two heads of state spent Tuesday in the Hautes-Pyrénées.

Emmanuel Macron had expressed his preference for discussions on these sensitive issues ‘behind closed doors’ before Xi Jinping’s arrival, while the situation of the Tibetans and the Uyghurs is arousing strong feelings in France, particularly among Raphaël Glucksmann, head of the Socialist list for the European elections in June.

According to Amnesty International, in 2023 ‘the human rights situation in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region remained catastrophic and impunity persisted for serious human rights violations committed against Uighurs, Kazakhs and other Muslim-majority ethnic minorities in the region’.

According to the Élysée Palace, the subject of human rights was raised on Monday during the first day of the State visit, just before the mountain excursion organised by Emmanuel Macron for his Chinese counterpart on Tuesday. The two presidents and their wives had lunch at the high-altitude restaurant run by Eric Abadie, a breeder friend of Emmanuel Macron’s, on the Col du Tourmalet, one of the most famous mountain passes in the Pyrenees.

The French Presidency was delighted with this sequence, emphasising the intimacy sought between the two leaders for a dialogue that was both friendly and frank. It also highlighted the ‘special relationship’ established by Emmanuel Macron with Xi Jinping, pointing out that few leaders in the world have this opportunity to exchange views with the Chinese president.