France's Macron visits Brazil to launch Amazon protection plan

French President Emmanuel Macron, who has criticized Brazil for not doing enough to protect the Amazon, is in the South American country for a three-day visit. Alongside President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, he'll launch a billion-euro green investment plan for the rainforest.

Lula will meet Macron in Belem, near the mouth of the Amazon River, where the pair will visit conservation parks with sustainable development projects and meet with indigenous leaders.

"Lula wants to show Macron the complexity of the Amazon, which is not just a vast rainforest but also a place where 25 million people live," Brazil's top diplomat for Europe and North America, Maria Luisa Escorel, said.

Earlier this week Macron visited parts of the tropical forest in French Guiana.

Escorel said the French government would help fund sustainable development programmes in the Amazon and to fight deforestation.

Lula and Macron will discuss a common course to fight both climate change and poverty as Brazil prepares to host the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro in November, and UN climate talks in Belem next year – both of which the French president will attend.

A stalled trade agreement between the European Union and the South American common market Mercosur will not be on the agenda because it is not a bilateral matter, Brazilian and French officials said.

Macron faces pressure from French farmers to kill the deal, which has been under negotiation for two decades.

Brazil, in turn, is unhappy with EU legislation passed last year barring imports of coffee, beef, soy and other commodities if they are linked to recent deforestation.

Ups and downs

Brazil and France already work together in the fields of nuclear energy, renewable energies, defence technologies and technological innovation.

Paris and Brasilia signed a strategic alliance in 2008 with France supporting Brazil's ambition to become a global player on the international scene, and its bid for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.

But during the Bolsonaro presidency from 2019-22 relations grounded to a virtual standstill.

In 2019, Macron led a wave of international pressure on Bolsonaro over fires raging in the Amazon.

Bolsonaro accused Macron and other G7 countries of treating Brazil like "a colony" and said he would only accept $20 million in G7 aid to fight the Amazon rainforest wildfires if French President Emmanuel Macron retracted criticisms.

Under President Lula da Silva, Brazil re-engaged in parterships with France – notably green policies – while lucrative defence projects like the Franco-Brazilian Submarine Development Program were extended.

At the Itaguai shipyard outside Rio, Macron and Lula will on Wednesday launch the third Scorpene-class diesel-powered submarine built in Brazil with French technology – part of a $10 billion program that will build Brazil's first nuclear-powered submarine by the end of the decade.

The programme is a partnership with France's state-run Naval Group, in which the Thales defence group has a 35 percent stake.

Macron will also meet business executives in Sao Paulo on Wednesday and make a state visit to Brasilia on Thursday, meeting again with Lula and with the leader of the Senate.

(with newswires)