Trade, Russia and the Middle East on the table as Xi Jinping and Macron lunch high in the Pyrenees

These covered everything from artificial intelligence governance to battery manufacturing, the war in Gaza and access to the Chinese market for French pig farmers.

Xi's visit has yet to deliver major orders to Airbus, a key part of the French agenda, and Reuters reported that negotiations over the plane purchase would go all the way.

After being greeted at the airport by Macron, Xi's motorcade climbed the Col du Tourmalet, a mountain climb that offers cyclists one of the steepest challenges in the Tour de France.

But upon arriving at Etape du Berger, a restaurant owned by Eric Abadie, a close friend of the Macrons, there would be other geopolitical hills to climb.

Ukraine features prominently in Macron's speeches, as do concerns about China's trade and economic policies.

We respect the long-standing ties between China and Russia and the decades-long efforts to stabilize these relations, Macron told Xi on Monday.

Given this complex history, we welcome commitments by Chinese authorities to refrain from selling arms or aid to Moscow and to strictly control the export of dual-use goods.

Xi, for his part, warned against using the Ukraine crisis to shift blame, defame a third country and incite a new Cold War.

This was in response to a European Union investigation into subsidies in China's electric vehicle sector, launched by Brussels with the full support of Paris.

In a charged gesture before Monday evening's state banquet, Macron gave Xi two bottles of cognac, to thank him for his openness about the provisional measures on French cognac and his wish not to see them enforced.

After European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who participated in a trilateral meeting with Macron and Xi on Monday, denounced the overcapacity of the Chinese economy, saying that the world cannot absorb excess production from the China in high-tech goods, Xi countered.

Whether from the perspective of comparative advantage or global market demand, China's overcapacity problem does not exist, Xi told a news conference, adding that China's huge production of high-tech green goods from Beijing would help the planet meet its climate obligations.

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Chinese President Xi Jinping meets French leader Emmanuel Macron at the Elysée

Chinese President Xi Jinping meets French leader Emmanuel Macron at the Elysée

However, common ground was found on some of the major global issues of the day.

A 10-point statement was issued on the Middle East, just after it was announced that Hamas officials had approved a ceasefire deal for Gaza proposed by Qatari and Egyptian mediators. In this statement, Macron and Xi expressed their opposition to an Israeli offensive on Rafah, which would lead to a humanitarian catastrophe on a new scale.

An agreement on AI underlined the importance of strengthening international cooperation in the context of rapid technological development to guarantee international security and stability, sovereignty and respect for fundamental rights.

On the sidelines of a business conference linked to Xi's visit, Chinese and French companies also announced a series of agreements.

These include an agreement between Frances Orano and China's Xiamen Tungsten New Energy to forge a global strategic partnership in the battery industry, and a memorandum of understanding between France's Fives and China's Envision to cooperate in the assembly of battery cells in France.

A long list of Chinese companies were invited to this part of the summit, some of which were in the crosshairs of European regulators. They included telecommunications giants Huawei Technologies and ZTE, as well as railway equipment supplier CRRC.

On the trade front, China agreed to open its market to French exports of pork offal and processed pork proteins, while the two sides agreed to intensify exchanges on the opening of Chinese cosmetics markets. to French companies, in a nod to a long-standing European economic problem.

From the Pyrenees, Xi will travel to Serbia, a wise choice in his three-country itinerary, given that he will land in Belgrade on the 25th anniversary of NATO's bombing of the Chinese embassy there.

There, and at his next stop in Hungary, Xi can expect to face less awkward questioning than in Paris, given his close ties to their respective leaders.