King Charles’s three-day state visit to France, a year into his reign, has marked the return of the British monarchy’s international dimension. The trip, along with is his first state visit earlier in the year to Germany, are the first among what is hoped will be many trips.
After a state visit to Germany and a visit to Malta in 2015, Elizabeth II stopped travelling overseas. This limited a key function of the monarchy, which is to represent the UK abroad as part of an overall package of soft power.
Other members of the royal family, including the then Prince Charles, conducted official visits overseas. But these fell short of the scale and spectacle of being a full state visit, which often includes great ceremony such as a full state banquet and an address to the host nation’s parliament.
