United States presidential visits to France

Eleven United States presidents have made 37 presidential visits to France. The first visits by an incumbent president to France were made in 1918 and 19 by Woodrow Wilson in the aftermath of World War I. He was only the third president in U.S. history to leave the country while in office (after Theodore Roosevelt, and William Howard Taft before him). Wilson was awarded the 1919 Nobel Peace Prize for his peacemaking efforts..^[1]

Table of visits

United States presidential visits to France

President	Dates	Locations	Notes
Woodrow Wilson	December 14–25, 1918	Paris, Chaumont	Attended preliminary discussions prior to the Paris Peace Conference; promoted his Fourteen Points principles for world peace. Departed the U.S. December 4.[2]
	December 31, 1918 – January 1, 1919	Paris	Stopover en route to Italy.[2]
	January 7–14, 1919	Paris	Attended Paris Peace Conference. Arrived In the U.S. February 24.[2]
	March 14 – June 18, 1919	Paris	Attended Paris Peace Conference. Departed the U.S. March 5.[2]
	June 20–28, 1919	Paris	Attended Paris Peace Conference. Returned to U.S. July 8..[2]
Dwight D. Eisenhower	December 14–19, 1957	Paris	Attended the First NATO summit.[3]
	September 2–4, 1959	Paris	Informal Meeting with President Charles de Gaulle and Italian Prime Minister Antonio Segni. Addressed North Atlantic Council.[3]
	December 18–21, 1959	Toulon, Paris	Conference with President Charles de Gaulle, British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer.[3]
	May 15–19, 1960	Paris	Conference with President Charles de Gaulle, British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev.[3]
John F. Kennedy	May 31 – June 3, 1961	Paris	State Visit. Addressed North Atlantic Council. Met with President Charles de Gaulle.[4]
Richard Nixon	February 28 – March 2, 1969	Paris	Met with President Charles de Gaulle.[5]
	November 12, 1970	Paris	Attended the memorial services for former President Charles de Gaulle.[5]
	April 5–7, 1974	Paris	Attended the memorial services for former President Georges Pompidou. Met afterward with interim President Alain Poher, Italian President Giovanni Leone, British Prime Minister Harold Wilson, West German Chancellor Willy Brandt, Danish Prime Minister Poul Hartling, Soviet President Nikolai Podgorny and Japanese Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka.[5]
Gerald Ford	November 15–17, 1975	Rambouillet	Attended the 1st G6 summit.[6]
Jimmy Carter	January 4–6, 1978	Paris, Normandy, Bayeux, Versailles	Met with President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing and Prime Minister Raymond Barre.[7]
Ronald Reagan	June 2–7, 1982	Paris, Versailles	State Visit. Met with President François Mitterrand and Prime Minister Pierre Mauroy. Attended the 8th G7 summit.[8]
	June 6, 1984	Normandy	Attended commemorative ceremonies of the 40th anniversary of the Allied landing in Normandy. Also present were Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, King Olav V of Norway, King Baudouin I of Belgium, French President François Mitterrand, Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom and Jean, Grand Duke of Luxembourg.[8]
	May 8, 1985	Strasbourg	Addressed the European Parliament.[8]
George H. W. Bush	July 13–17, 1989	Paris	Attended the 15th G7 summit. Also attended ceremonies for the Bicentennial of the French Revolution. Met with Ivorian President Félix Houphouët-Boigny.[9]
	November 18–21, 1990	Paris	Attended the CSCE Summit Meeting and the signing of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe.[9]
	July 14, 1991	Rambouillet	Discussed further sanctions against Iraq with President François Mitterrand.[9]
	January 3–5, 1993	Paris	Discussed the Bosnian crisis with President François Mitterrand.[9]
Bill Clinton	June 6–8, 1994	Colleville, Paris	Attended the 50th anniversary of D-Day memorial ceremonies. Met with President François Mitterrand and senior French officials. Addressed the French National Assembly.[10]
	December 14, 1995	Paris	Attended the signing of the Bosnian peace treaty.[10]
	June 27–29, 1996	Lyon, Pérouges, Paris	Attended the 22nd G7 summit. Met with Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin and UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali.[10]
	May 26–27, 1997	Paris	Attended the NATO Summit Meeting and the signing of the NATO-Russia Founding Act.[10]
	June 16–17, 1999	Paris	Discussed peacekeeping in Kosovo with President Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Lionel Jospin.[10]
George W. Bush	May 26–27, 2002	Paris, Sainte-Mère-Église, Colleville	Met with President Jacques Chirac. Delivered a Memorial Day address in Normandy.[11]
	June 1–2, 2003	Evian-les-Bains	Attended the 29th G8 summit. Met with Chinese President Hu Jintao.[11]
	June 5–6, 2004	Paris, Colleville, Caen, Arromanches	Met with President Jacques Chirac. Attended the 60th anniversary of D-Day ceremonies.[11]
	June 13–15, 2008	Paris	Met with President Nicolas Sarkozy. Addressed the OECD. Attended wreath-laying ceremonies at the Suresnes American Cemetery and Memorial and Mémorial de la France combattante.[11]
Barack Obama	April 3–4, 2009	Strasbourg	Attended the NATO Summit Meeting.[12]
	June 5–7, 2009	Paris, Caen, Normandy	Met with President Nicolas Sarkozy and dedicated the new visitor center at the U.S. Military Cemetery in Normandy.[12]
	May 26–27, 2011	Deauville, Paris	Attended the 37th G8 summit.[12]
	November 3–4, 2011	Cannes	Attended the G-20 Summit Meeting.[12]
	June 5–6, 2014	Paris, Colleville, Ouistreham	Met with President François Hollande. Attended the 70th anniversary of D-Day memorial ceremonies.
	November 29 – December 1, 2015	Paris	Attended the United Nations Climate Change Conference. Joined President François Hollande and Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo in paying respects to the victims of the Paris attacks by laying flowers in front of the Bataclan.[13]

See also

• France–United States relations
• Foreign policy of the United States
• Foreign relations of the United States

References

1. "The Nobel Peace Prize 1919". nobelprize.org. Nobel Media AB. 2014. Retrieved February 26, 2016.
2. "Travels of President Woodrow Wilson". U.S. Department of State Office of the Historian.
3. "Travels of President Dwight D. Eisenhower". U.S. Department of State Office of the Historian.
4. "Travels of President John F. Kennedy". U.S. Department of State Office of the Historian.
5. "Travels of President Richard M. Nixon". U.S. Department of State Office of the Historian.
6. "Travels of President Gerald R. Ford". U.S. Department of State Office of the Historian.
7. "Travels of President Jimmy Carter". U.S. Department of State Office of the Historian.
8. "Travels of President Ronald Reagan". U.S. Department of State Office of the Historian.
9. "Travels of President George H. W. Bush". U.S. Department of State Office of the Historian. Archived from the original on 2011-12-04.
10. "Travels of President William J. Clinton". U.S. Department of State Office of the Historian. Archived from the original on 2011-12-04.
11. "Travels of President George W. Bush". U.S. Department of State Office of the Historian.
12. "Travels of President Barack Obama". U.S. Department of State Office of the Historian.
13. "Obama, Hollande pay respects to Paris attack victims". The Times of Israel. Agence France-Presse. November 30, 2015. Retrieved November 30, 2015.