The couples exchanged greetings — in true French fashion, Macron kissed Jill Biden on each cheek — and then the festivities began in earnest.
A band played “The Star-Spangled Banner” and the French national anthem, “La Marseillaise.” As the two world leaders waited to begin their remarks, the Army’s Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps — decked out in long red coats and white pants — paraded in front of the stage. .
That’s a stark contrast to Macron’s awkward, white-knuckled handshake with former President Donald Trump at a NATO summit in Brussels in 2017. That handshake — which Macron reportedly practiced after watching videos of Trump’s technique — came across like a test of wills, with the French president seeming determined to demonstrate to the American president that he’d met his match in the transatlantic quest for dominance.The president gifted his French counterpart with a custom vinyl record collection of American musicians and an archival facsimile print of Thomas Edison’s 1877 Patent of the American Phonograph.Jill Biden gave Brigitte Macron a gold and emerald pendant necklace designed by a French-American designer.
The Bidens also got a cup from Christofle, a French manufacturer of fine silverware; a sweater from House St.French tiff: Macron, in Washington, slams Biden climate incentives as 'super aggressive' to French firms.