Submarines and climate change: France's Macron and Brazil's Lula look to build relationship
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Transcript
00:00 The French President Emmanuel Macron is in Brazil on a state visit this week.
00:04 Today he's been visiting a submarine that was built in Rio de Janeiro with French technology.
00:10 Now during the three-day trip Macron is seeking deeper cooperation with the President Lula
00:16 government. This after years of friction during the tenure of Jair Bolsonaro. To tell us a little
00:22 more Angela Diffley our foreign editor is with me. And Angela why is Macron making this visit
00:28 to Brazil now? Well this is something of a reset in Franco-Brazilian relations.
00:35 The first thing to say is that it is a good thing in terms of those relation that Lula is not
00:43 Bolsonaro because the relationship really collapsed after Macron made some criticisms of Bolsonaro's
00:50 politics in Amazon on the rainforest and Bolsonaro replied by insulting Macron's wife.
00:57 The whole relationship deteriorated dramatically. These two have something of the beginnings of a
01:05 personal relationship. They're actually it appears in international gatherings sometimes seated next
01:09 to each other because it's done alphabetically. For example at the King's coronation Lula and
01:14 Macron they were next to each other. There was enough of a flicker enough of a spark for diplomats
01:20 to exploit and turn that spark of the beginning of a personal chemistry and use it. In terms of
01:29 what can be worked on these two men are keen to cooperate on climate change. It's something that
01:36 they both take very seriously and so they will be talking very much about that. Apart from that
01:43 France is the third biggest investor in Brazil and high in that investment is the defense sector. We
01:51 saw that you mentioned that the launch of this Brazilian built submarine with French technology.
02:00 There is also under study a nuclear powered such submarine for the future. So they're really
02:06 cooperating on that. Also France has a border with Brazil. There's 730 kilometer border. French Guiana
02:17 which is a French overseas region borders northern Brazil. And there is there are sometimes issues
02:26 around illegal gold mining and the contamination of the environment around there where they have
02:31 announced that they plan to cooperate with joint police operations. You touched on this a little
02:37 bit already. You mentioned investment and tell us sort of economically how important would you say
02:42 Brazil is to France. Well economically and in other contexts the most important thing to say
02:49 is that the Elysee let it be known before Macron left that the thorny issue of the Mercosur EU
02:58 commerce trade agreement would not be discussed. It is much more convenient for Macron to say look
03:03 we'll leave that European Union negotiations negotiators because there is a clash on this.
03:08 Lula says France is too protectionist on its agricultural policy particularly. That's where
03:15 the biggest clash is. And the French farmers who recently caused a significant disruption here in
03:23 France have been complaining to Macron saying that Brazil and other Latin American countries
03:28 under this pact would it would be an unfair playing field. So they've left that aside.
03:33 What is important in the wider context is of course the growing importance of Brazil in the world in
03:39 the new world order a multipolar world. Lula will be president of the BRICS. He will take over the
03:47 presidency of the BRICS group of countries in 2025 and he will be hosting in October the G20
03:57 countries. He will be COP30. Brazil is hosting the environmental conference next year as well.
04:04 Brazil is a very important voice in the world. Other issues they'll discuss. Macron might try to
04:09 get Brazil to move towards sanctions on Ukraine. Brazil has very much avoided criticizing Russia.
04:16 Russia is an important relationship for Brazil as is China its biggest trading partner. And the
04:22 Brazilians might want to talk to Macron about Haiti and to a lesser extent Venezuela where
04:28 they have unfolding chaos in both countries.