It’s two metres apart over here, mon ami! Boris Johnson dodges enthusiastic welcome from Manu Macron

Emmanuel Marcon appeared to consider a very coronavirus unfriendly greeting for Boris Johnson as the two leaders met for talks in Downing Street today.

The French president – whose country insists on only one metre social distancing – briefly appeared to want to hug the Prime Minister as they greeted each other outside No10.

But in the end he settled for a small bow and a retrained namaste greeting ahead of talks expected to cover coronavirus, as well as a possible tourist air bridge to France and an EU trade deal. 

The UK has instituted a 14-day quarantine period for all arrivals to the UK, which critics say will prevent foreign and domestic tourism. 

Ministers are hoping that individual reciprocal individual deals with nations will allow the rules to be relaxed for some, but remain for the worst affected countries.

It is also expected the two leaders will discuss Brexit, with talks between the UK and EU deadlocked. 

Official talks cannot be conducted on this between nation states but some informal discussion is expected. 

Later the two men watched a flypast by the Red Arrows and their French equivalent, the Patrouille de France, who earlier flew over the French capital.

Mr Macron had earlier been welcomed to Britain with a ceremony of pomp and pageantry as he marked the 80th anniversary of General Charles de Gaulle’s famous wartime broadcast following the Nazi invasion of France.

The French President said de Gaulle called his country to resist and embodied a ‘resistance spirit’ after being welcomed to Britain by the ‘old lion’ Sir Winston Churchill and made a BBC broadcast to occupied France in 1940. 

He spoke after the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall greeted him at their official London home of Clarence House in the pouring rain – but all remained two metres apart, following coronavirus social distancing guidelines.

Meanwhile police officers were forced to intervene after a man arrived at the scene to protest about ‘French interference’ in Cameroon, with a group of concerned-looking officers seen running down the road at one point. 

The French president is visiting England, without his wife Brigitte who is undergoing an eye operation back in Paris, to commemorate the 80th anniversary of his predecessor General De Gaulle’s ‘Appel’.  

De Gaulle led his free forces from London, which Mr Macron will decorate with the Legion d’Honneur (Legion of Honour) – France’s highest order of merit. He will also later meet Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

Despite such an honour, an Élysée Palace source said the pomp would be accompanied by tense behind-the-scenes talks, dominated by thorny issues including Brexit and the handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

Lined up outside Clarence House today was a ceremonial guard of honour from Number 7 Company Coldstream Guards joined by the Band of the Coldstream Guards – who all stood at least two metres apart. 

After the national anthems of France and the UK were played, Guard Commander, Major Piers Gambarini, invited Mr Macron to inspect the servicemen.

He was accompanied by Charles, with the two men sheltered under umbrellas as the rain which had deluged London for much of the day continued to fall.

France’s leader walked past the servicemen who when not performing ceremonial duties are fighting soldiers.

The two men later posed for an official photograph before holding talks in Clarence House.

Later, Charles and Camilla and the president travelled the short distance from Clarence House to the Mall, where Mr Macron laid a wreath at the King George VI and the Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother statues.

Charles’ grandfather George VI reigned during the Second World War and after Buckingham Palace was bombed on September 13 1940, the Queen Mother said she felt she could ‘look the East End in the face’.

Pipe Major Stephen Bennett of the Scots Guards played the pipes as he led the group up a series of steps to Carlton Gardens and on to a nearby statue erected in honour of General de Gaulle.

Major Johanna Maljette read the General’s famous address after the prince and Mr Macron had left floral tributes to the former French president, laying wreaths at the statue.

Before heading to Britain today, Mr Macron took part in a traditional annual ceremony this morning at Mont-Valerien outside Paris, a memorial for the French who fought against the Nazis and those who were killed by the occupying forces. 

Speaking about the visit, a presidential aide said: ‘We have plenty of reasons to blame the English at the moment, but that does not erase the role played during the war.’

But in a pointed dig at moves to remove statues such as one of Sir Winston Churchill from Westminster, the source added: ‘We are not rewriting history’. 

Mr Macron is also expected to pay tribute to London as once being ‘the capital of Free France’ 

Before meeting Mr Johnson, President Macron arrived at Clarence House. Waiting to welcome him to their home were the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall.

The president arrived in his official plane – a Dassault Falcon 7X – decorated in the national colours of France at RAF Northolt in West London.

An RAF aircraft used by the Prime Minister and senior royals for official travel is to have a makeover in the colours of the Union flag, but opposition MPs have reacted furiously to the bill for the paint job, which will cost almost £1million.

Mr Johnson will give Emmanuel Macron a framed montage containing a telegram sent by de Gaulle to Sir Winston on VE Day.

The montage will also include Churchill’s reply, and a photograph of the wartime leaders in Paris shortly after the liberation.

The Prime Minister’s spokesman said Mr Johnson would also give Mr Macron a ‘miniature replica of Churchill’s open-topped Land Rover Defender to go with the president’s model of Charles de Gaulle’s car, which currently sits in president Macron’s office’.

De Gaulle’s VE Day telegram, written in French, read: ‘At the moment when the cannon ceases to thunder in Europe I commit to address to you my faithful thought of friendship and admiration. What has been done would never have been without you.

‘I am sure of meeting your hope in wishing ardently that our two old and great peoples march forward together in fertile and glorious peace.’

Churchill replied: ‘Although we have had our ups and downs, I have never forgotten that day at Tours when I passed you amid the sorrowful crowd and said, in the hearing of several, ‘There is a man of destiny’.

‘I see you now at the head of France, representing more than any other man known to the world her will-to-live and her resolve to recover her greatness.’

Meanwhile Britain will honour four French Resistance fighters: Edgard Tupet-Thome, 100; Daniel Cordier, 99; Hubert Germain, 99, and Pierre Simonet, 98 – and there will be a Red Arrows flypast from about 5pm.  

The four will not be present, but will receive their awards in France later.

It came as Mr Macron’s foreign minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, said Britain was still struggling to understand the implications of its decision to leave the EU.

In a hard-hitting interview in Le Croix, Mr Le Drian said: ‘When you are outside the Union, you do not enjoy the same advantages as when you are inside. You cannot have a foot in and a foot out. 

‘You have to choose, and I am not sure that they have understood the full magnitude of their withdrawal.’

Mr Drian did not rule out the EU failing to reach a trade deal with Britain, which stops abiding by EU rules in January.

‘We cannot exclude the prospect of a No Deal but we want to avoid it,’ said Mr Le Drian. ‘The British are playing against the clock but that is not always the way to reach a good agreement.’

There was anger in Paris when the British imposed strict Coronavirus quarantine rules for those arriving from France, but Mr Macron and his presidential aides will not abide by them.

Mr Johnson ‘made it clear that they can be waived for those on diplomatic business,’ said the Élysée source.

Beyond Mr Johnson, Mr Macron will be meeting dignitaries including Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall today, but French first lady Brigitte Macron will stay in Paris.

‘She is undergoing an eye operation,’ said the source, who explained that Ms Macron, who at 67 is 25 years older than her husband, will be wearing tinted glasses and not travelling ‘for the next few weeks’.

The Prime Minister is expected to discuss the UK’s current two-week quarantine for all arrivals with his French counterpart, amid reports that Mr Macron will call on the Government to revisit the decision.

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said the Government wants to ‘open up’ the UK when it ‘safely and responsibly’ can, and said ministers are looking ‘very carefully’ at the measure.

He told Sky News: ‘As we’ve always said, the quarantine is there to stop the risk of reinfection precisely because we’ve got Covid down.’

Asked why it is in place when UK infection rates are higher than France, he said: ‘It’s not quite as simple as that though, because we’ve seen in Europe and in Asia, as countries come out of lockdown, the risk of second waves and second spikes.

‘But we will look at all the factors very carefully. We want to open up as soon as we safely and responsibly can and we will look at all the mechanisms to do so, and of course we’ll have a good conversation with the French.

‘I’ll be in Berlin tomorrow so we’re talking to all of our European partners about these things.’

In Downing Street, Mr Johnson and Mr Macron will view artefacts – including letters – documenting General de Gaulle’s time in London and his partnership with Sir Winston Churchill.

The statue of Britain’s wartime leader in Parliament Square was uncovered on Wednesday evening ahead of the French president’s arrival, after it was boarded up for fear of attack by protesters.

The two leaders will also watch a flypast of the Red Arrows and their French equivalent, La Patrouille de France, to mark the anniversary of the Appel.

Mr Johnson said: ‘Eighty years ago, Charles de Gaulle, the leader of the French Resistance, arrived in London knowing that the values of freedom, tolerance and democracy that Britain and France shared were under threat.  

‘He pledged that we would stand together to defend those values and protect our citizens from those bent on destroying us.

‘The four men we are honouring today – Pierre, Edgard, Daniel and Hubert – symbolise the enduring depth and strength of the friendship between our two countries.

‘They are heroes, and I am immensely proud that, as a nation, we are paying tribute to their courage and sacrifice in defending us and the whole world from fascism.

‘The struggles we face today are different to those we confronted together 80 years ago. But I have no doubt that – working side by side – the UK and France will continue to rise to every new challenge and seize every opportunity that lies ahead.’

Today will be given added poignancy by news of the death of British singer Vera Lynn, who famously who helped keep up morale during the Second World War. She was 103.

Mr Macron, who displays de Gaulle’s war memoirs on his desk in his official photograph, is making much of 2020 as an anniversary year for the French resistance leader who would later become president of post-occupation France.

The general’s iconic stature and his defiant wartime spirit are being tapped into even more during the unprecedented challenges posed by the epidemic.

In a telling reflection of his status, the vandalisation of a de Gaulle bust in northern France this week was met with a torrent of outrage.

In his radio broadcast from London, de Gaulle urged all those who could to carry on fighting for France, words that laid the foundation of the resistance movement and helped keep alive hope that France would be liberated, as it finally was in 1944.

‘Has the last word been said? Should hope disappear? Is the defeat final? No! Believe me, I… tell you that nothing is lost for France,’ he said.