King Carlos III and his wife Camila will travel to France and then to Germany from March 26 to 31 for their first state visits. These trips will be an opportunity to “celebrate the relationship” between the UK and these two countries, according to Buckingham Palace.

This trip, dominated by environmental issues, is the first abroad since Carlos, 74, became king on September 8. As crown prince, he has already made 34 official visits to France, the last in 2019, and 28 to Germany.

“This visit will provide an opportunity to look to the future and demonstrate the many ways in which the UK works in partnership with France and Germany,” Buckingham Palace said in a statement on Friday. The Palace cites in particular the fight against global warming and the response to the conflict in Ukraine.

Carlos III, who speaks French, and Camila will be in France from March 26 to 29. In Paris, they will participate with President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte in a remembrance ceremony at the Arc de Triomphe. The King will deliver a speech in the Senate. A state banquet is scheduled at the Palace of Versailles in his honor on March 27. On March 28, Charles and Camilla will travel to Bordeaux, in the southwest. The king will travel to areas devastated by fires last summer and visit an organic vineyard.

“This state visit, the first of the sovereign before his coronation, constitutes an honor done to France and illustrates the depth of the historical ties that unite our two countries,” the Elysée stressed.

Refugees and green technologies

In Germany, from March 29 to 31, the royal couple will travel to Berlin and then to Hamburg. Carlos III will give a speech in the Bundestag, the German Federal Parliament. He will meet newly arrived refugees from Ukraine. In Hamburg, the king, passionate about sustainable development, will speak about green technologies.

The first State visits of Carlos III will take place a few weeks before his coronation on May 6 at Westminster Abbey. They will take place a few days after British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s first visit to France on March 10.

Charles’s mother, Elizabeth II, who spoke French and was a Francophile, made five state visits to France during her reign, in addition to numerous private ones.

His last state visit to France was in 2014, on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the landing. On the beaches of Normandy he had met with 1,800 veterans and 18 heads of state and government, including US and Russian presidents Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin.

Elizabeth II’s last visit to Germany in 2015, led by Angela Merkel, aroused great enthusiasm in the country. With her husband, Prince Felipe, she had visited the former Nazi concentration camp of Bergen-Belsen, in the north of the country.

/ATS