After spending his Wednesday evening in Versailles, then Thursday in Paris, where he spoke before the Senate, Charles III went to Bordeaux this Friday, September 22, the last stop of his visit to France. The city was in fact not chosen by chance by the British monarch since Aquitaine was an English land from the 12th to the 15th century.
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Several hundred people gathered and warmly applauded the passage of the royal convoy, reports RFI’s special correspondent in Bordeaux, Pierre Olivier. Charles III took a few moments for a walkabout before entering the Bordeaux town hall.
On the program of his visit, the king met the mayor of Bordeaux, Pierre Hurmic, an ecologist who had declared a state of climate emergency during his election in 2020. Charles III is also a convinced ecologist since he created an organic farm, converted the royal estates to renewable energy and ran his old Aston Martin with surplus English white wine and whey from the cheese-making process.
Another reason for his coming to New Aquitaine, the number of British nationals who live in Bordeaux and its surroundings. It is the region of France which has the most British people with a quarter of them residing there, a region under English domination for three centuries until 1453, and this page of history has probably not escaped to the British monarch.
Charles III was to discover an experimental forest on site in Floirac, and visit a biodynamic vineyard, more respectful of the environment, while his wife was to meet the association helping the most deprived, Le Pain de l’Amitié. At the end of the day, the royal couple will leave New Aquitaine for England, but by an environmentally unfriendly means of transport: the plane. However, the train connects the two countries.
Read alsoVisit of Charles III: in the Senate, the king pleads for a new “understanding” between London and Paris on the climate