‘Sorry for the World Cup’ and ‘for Brexit’: Emmanuel Macron became embroiled in football news on Wednesday while visiting the Jordanian archaeological site of Jerash, the ‘Pompeii of the Middle East’, on his 45th birthday.
“Sorry for the Worldcup,” began an English tourist who, stunned, met him at a bend in an alley before asking him for a selfie.
What comes after this ad?
“I’m sorry about Brexit. We didn’t want him, a lot of us,” said another British tourist a few yards away.
What comes after this ad?
Dating from the Hellenistic period to the Umayyad period, the site features an extraordinary array of temples, monumental staircases, theaters and pillared arrays, earning it the nickname of the ‘Site of a Thousand Columns’.
Egyptian lyric singer Farrah El-Dibany, who sang the Marseillaise for the France-Argentina final on Sunday and accompanied the President on his subsequent trip, sang a few notes of “Carmen” at the theater dedicated to poetry.
What comes next after this ad What comes next after this ad
Before returning to Paris, the French President had a meeting with King Abdullah II of Jordan, during which the two men hailed the “success” of the regional conference in support of Iraq organized the previous day.
France and several regional actors called on Iraq during Tuesday’s summit to move away from the Iranian axis to promote a resolution to the crises rocking the Middle East.
The Baghdad II Conference, after a first edition in the Iraqi capital, took place on the shores of the Dead Sea in August 2021 at the initiative of Emmanuel Macron and Iraq.
King Abdallah also said he discussed “the challenges in Syria and Lebanon and the problems” of the Middle East peace process with the French leader.