With UK sidelined, Macron forges unlikely alliance with Trump

After landing in Paris early on Thursday morning, Trump honoured American first world war veterans in a ceremony at the US embassy to mark 100 years since the US joined the conflict, while Macron was engaged in a separate meeting with the German chancellor, Angela Merkel.

The US president then arrived at the vast, historic military complex at Les Invalides, built by the Sun King Louis XIV, where he was met with a large French army reception and joined Macron in inspecting the troops. This seemed to flatter the US president, who has described himself as "a big military person" fond of army parades. Trump will spend 24 hours in Paris, as a guest of honour at Friday's Bastille day celebrations.

While a row continues in Washington over allegations that his family sought to collude with Russia to win last year's US presidential election, the US president looked relaxed, patting Macron on the shoulder several times as he began a schedule of high pomp and pageantry.

Macron has chosen to move on from his aggressive first handshake with the US leader and style himself as Trump's new "straight-talking" friend on the international stage. The two leaders were later due to spend more than an hour at the Elysée palace in talks where the key topics included Syria, Iraq, counter-terrorism and also possible financial support for French anti-jihadi military operations in Africa.

In hosting Trump for 24 hours, Macron's strategy is to set up a kind of of persuasive bridge-building. When the two leaders first met in May, the French president publicly asserted his superiority by crunching Trump's knuckles and later rebuked him for for pulling the US out of the Paris climate accord, but the tone has now shifted.