Japanese PM Shinzo Abe visits French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday at the Élysée Palace in Paris. The leaders, presiding this year over the G20 and G7, respectively, meet against the unusual backdrop of the Carlos Ghosn affair.
From France’s perspective, the leaders’ working lunch meeting comes at a delicate time, with Ghosn, the former head of French carmaker Renault and its Japanese partner Nissan, currently in pre-trail detention in Japan.
Japanese authorities on Monday hit Ghosn with a fresh charge of aggravated breach of trust, the fourth indictment against the executive, who denies all allegations against him and promptly filed for bail. The 65-year-old’s rollercoaster case has gripped Japan and the business world since his dramatic arrest in November over alleged financial misconduct.
Summits on the horizon
Macron’s office says Abe’s visit will allow the pair to coordinate their priorities ahead of the G20 and G7 summits. Japan convenes G20 leaders to Osaka at the end of June, while France hosts G7 heads in Biarritz two months later.
Abe said in early April that he would travel to six countries – France, Italy, Belgium, Slovakia, the United States and Canada – by the end of the month in the interest of preparing for the June gathering.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP)
