The president was expected in Albania on Monday morning to attend the Western Balkans summit. He won’t finally arrive in Tirana until late Monday afternoon.
Emmanuel Macron will postpone his arrival in Tirana on Monday, where he was due to attend a Balkans summit being held in France following the terrorist attack in Arras that killed a teacher and the situation in the Middle East, he said on Sunday at the Élysée.
The French president was originally expected in Albania on Monday morning to attend the 9th summit of the Berlin Process, which brings together the leaders of the Western Balkans and several European countries to promote political dialogue, cooperation and reconciliation in the region as well as the To promote rapprochement with the European Union.
“Given the national and international context,” he will only arrive in the Albanian capital late on Monday afternoon to complete the bilateral part of his visit, which will last until Tuesday, the French presidency said. He will be represented at the Balkan summit by European State Secretary Laurence Boone. The Élysée area has not yet specified its program in France before the flight to Albania.
The situation in the Middle East is at the heart of the executive branch’s concerns
A minute’s silence will be observed in schools on Monday at 2 p.m. to commemorate the victims of attacks on schools following the murder on Friday of a French teacher who was stabbed to death by a radicalized former student in Arras (Pas-de-Calais). The situation in the Middle East is also the focus of the executive branch’s concerns as Israel continues its preparations for a ground offensive in the northern Gaza Strip in response to Hamas’s unprecedented terrorist attack against the Hebrew state on October 7.
Emmanuel Macron stepped up exchanges with foreign leaders on Saturday, calling on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi to open a humanitarian corridor to Gaza via Rafah to “evacuate our compatriots.” Some will most likely still be held hostage by Hamas, according to authorities. The number of French nationals killed in the Palestinian Islamist movement’s unprecedented attacks against Israel has continued to rise, with a total of 17 dead and 15 missing. The Élysée on Saturday called on the powerful pro-Iranian armed movement Hezbollah and Tehran to “stay away from the conflict (…) to avoid opening a second front in the region.”