Macron’s trip to Washington is pure theatre

President Macron has landed in Washington with his fleet of jets to spend the next few days in procession across the capital with an enormous entourage in attendance.

‘It is unclear to many of us why Macron gets Biden’s first state visit,’ says my man in the Washington punditry. ‘Also unclear why Mme and I were not invited to the dinner,’ he adds.

Macron was met at the airport by vice-president Kamala Harris whom Macron will possibly not have listened to too attentively and was whisked to Blair House across the street from the White House, where he shall be staying in some splendour – although a certain lowering of the standard of living is inevitable when one leaves the Elysée.

Twelve months ago Macron was having a tantrum and recalling the French ambassador to Washington in the argument about submarines but all this is now forgotten for a modern-day field of a cloth of gold in which Macron will preen with his new best friend Joe Biden.