They will meet at the ornate Grand Trianon Palace at Versailles. Mr Macron says he expects some tough words.

It could be an awkward meeting, the BBC’s Lucy Williamson in Paris reports.

Recently Mr Macron’s election team accused Russian agents of launching cyber attacks against them.

At the G7 summit in Sicily at the weekend Mr Macron said: “It is essential to talk to Russia because there are a number of international issues that will not be resolved without a tough dialogue with them.”

France is in the coalition backing Sunni Arab and Kurdish rebels opposed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who has strong military help from Russia and Iran.

France has taken a tough line against Moscow over Russia’s intervention in Ukraine. Western sanctions, imposed after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, have been ratcheted up since pro-Russian rebels carved out a breakaway region in eastern Ukraine.

Mr Putin appeared to support Mr Macron’s nationalist rival Marine Le Pen during the French presidential election campaign.

He hosted Ms Le Pen in the Kremlin a month before the election’s first round.

Ms Le Pen’s National Front (FN) has received significant loans from Russian banks or banks associated with Russian financiers. She argued that French banks would not give the FN any loans.

Before becoming president this month Mr Macron accused Russia of pursuing “a hybrid strategy combining military intimidation and an information war”.

Versailles was chosen for the Macron-Putin meeting because an exhibition dedicated to Tsar Peter the Great is opening there. He visited Paris 300 years ago, along with other European countries which greatly influenced his reign.

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Source: BBC

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The awkward encounter saw each grip the other’s hand so firmly that their knuckles turned white .

Mr Macron told French media he had wanted to “show he would not make small concessions, not even symbolic ones, but also not overdo things”.

The leaders met in Brussels on Thursday ahead of a Nato summit.

As their vigorous handshake continued over several seconds, Mr Macron and Mr Trump also looked each other fixedly in the eyes until the US president attempted to disengage.

Mr Macron told the Journal du Dimanche newspaper his approach to the encounter had been about getting respect.

“Donald Trump, the Turkish president or the Russian president see things in terms of power relationships, which doesn’t bother me,” he said.

“I don’t believe in diplomacy through public criticism but in my bilateral dialogues I don’t let anything pass. That is how you get respect.”

Pressing the flesh

Mr Trump’s hand contact with foreign leaders has been closely scrutinised since he took power.

• In January he held UK Prime Minister Theresa May’s hand as they walked together – Mrs May later said he was “being a gentleman”
• He then yanked Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s hand towards him in one of his signature moves
• But Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau prevented this by gripping Mr Trump’s shoulder during their encounter
• And in March Mr Trump appeared simply to ignore the offer of a handshakefrom German Chancellor Angela Merkel

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Source: BBC

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“My mandate will give the French back the confidence to believe in themselves,” President Macron said at the elaborate Élysée Palace ceremony.

He vowed to see the EU “reformed and relaunched” during his time in office.

He takes over from François Hollande, whose five-year term was plagued by high unemployment figures.

Mr Macron was proclaimed France’s new president a week after his resounding victory over the National Front’s Marine le Pen, with 66% of the vote in the run-off poll.

The former investment banker, who had never contested an election before and only formed his centrist political movement a year ago, has vowed to shake up the country’s political order and reinvigorate its economy.

Tight security was in place across Paris for the ceremony at the president’s official residence, with hundreds of extra police on patrol.

France has been under a state of emergency since terror attacks in 2015 and a large section of the city centre was closed to traffic all morning.

‘World needs France’

During his inaugural address on Sunday, President Macron pledged to restore the confidence of the French people in their country’s future.

“The division and fractures in our society must be overcome,” said the 39-year-old centrist.

“The world and Europe need more than ever France, and a strong France, which speaks out loudly for freedom and solidarity,” he declared.

He said he would convince the people that “the power of France is not declining – that we are on the brink of a great renaissance”.

He was presented with a necklace once worn by Napoleon I, as a symbol of his position as Grand Master of the Legion of Honour (a title usually given to the leader of France).

Before the ceremony began, he spent nearly an hour with his predecessor, who handed him the country’s nuclear codes. It was Mr Hollande who launched the new president’s political career, appointing him first as advisor and later economy minister.

Despite historic low approval ratings, the former president tweeted after leaving the palace: “I leave a country in a much better state than I found it.”

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Source: BBC

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