The wife of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Olena Zelenska, will arrive in Paris Monday for her first trip to France since Russia invaded Ukraine in February.
Zelenska will be welcomed at the Elysee Palace on Monday by Brigitte Macron and attend a number of events in support of Ukraine.
Members of Kyiv’s government including the Ukrainian Prime Minister, Denys Chmyhal, and several ministers in charge of reconstruction are part of the delegation.
On Tuesday Zelenska will take part, alongside President Emmanuel Macron, in the “Solidarity of the Ukrainian people” international conference, announced by Macron in early November after a call with Volodymyr Zelensky.
The Ukrainian President, who has not left his country since the war started will make a statement via video during the meeting, held at the Quai d’Orsay.
On the same day, Finance minister Bruno Le Maire will be hosting a bilateral forum intended to mobilise French companies in favour of Ukraine, in the sectors of infrastructure, health, energy, digital and agriculture.
Three hundred companies are set to participate – including Airbus, Alstom, and Dassault.
School visit, fundraising
On Tuesday afternoon, Brigitte Macron will accompany Zelenska to a school in the centre of Paris, with the Minister of Education, Pap Ndiaye, to visit Ukrainian students who have been given asylum in France.
In the evening, Zelenska will hold a gala at the Salle Pleyel, a prestigious Art Deco venue near the Champs-Elysées, where Brigitte Macron is due to deliver a speech.
The evening will raise funds to rebuild a bomb-hit hospital in Izium, Zelenska's entourage said.
Among the donors is French screenwriter Michel Hazanavicius, director of the films "The Artist" and "OSS 117", and his 125,000 euros from an auction of movie props.
The evening will end with a concert by the Dakh Daughters, a female group from Kyiv that mixes traditional songs and punk cabaret.
France is one of several Western cities after New York and London on Zelenska’s list of diplomatic stopovers as she hopes to "amplify the Ukrainian voice in the world".
Diplomatic tensions
Next week's visit to France is Zelenska’s third, the first being in June 2019 shortly after her husband’s election and then in April 2021, on her own.
The brief visit comes at a moment of tension brought on by recent remarks made by Emmanuel Macron, with regard to the Kremlin.
In a television interview with French channel TFI on 3 December, Macron noted that it would be necessary to provide "guarantees for its own security to Russia, the day it returns to the table" of negotiations.
"One of the essential points is the fear that NATO will be at its door, and the deployment of weapons that can threaten Russia," he said.
Kyiv and some eastern European countries accused him of being too lenient or making too many overtures towards Moscow.
Macron pushed back against the criticism of his remarks that Russia would one day need to be assured of its own security from Western actions.
"I think we should not ... try to create controversy where there is none," the French leader said on his arrival at an EU-Balkans summit in Tirana on Tuesday.
"Someone wants to provide security guarantees to a terrorist and murderous state?", the secretary of Ukraine's national security and defence council, Oleksiy Danilov, reacted on social media.
For Polish deputy foreign minister Marcin Przydacz, Macron was "making a mistake" with his statements, and the West should stick to a policy of isolating Moscow.
