The tribute paid by France to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II has been heartfelt, fulsome and moving. French media across the board have paid generous homage, as though to one of their finest, to Britain’s longest serving monarch – surpassed in world history only by Louis XIV acceding as a babe-in-arms. This vicarious Panthéonisation was admirably encapsulated by Emmanuel Macron, the 10th French president the British sovereign had known. In a moving video in English posted on Twitter on Friday, foregrounded against the Union Jack, he poignantly encapsulated the feelings of his people and their ‘emptiness’ at the British monarch’s death: ‘To you she was your Queen; to us she was the Queen’.
President Macron reminded us that the Queen’s six state visits to France are unsurpassed by any head of state, not to mention the host of unofficial visits she made in a private capacity to race courses and Normandy horse breeders.
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