Prime Minister Stephen Harper is a few hours away from leaving Paris, France after arriving here Thursday night (left). This Paris trip followed a day-trip to London, England.
Harper met with the leaders of each country as part of his pre-G8/G20 summit consensus-building tour.
In Paris today, Harper started the day with a late-morning visit at the Palace Élysée with French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Reporters were treated to a photo opp of Harper's arrival, a greeting from Sarkozy, and 30 seconds in their meeting room before being whisked to the Hôtel Matignon, the official residence of the French prime minister. The current occupant is François Fillon.
Reporters were treated to a similar photo opp — Harper's arrival, Fillon greeting — but, at the end of the hour-long meeting of the prime ministers, the pair emerged for a press conference. (Sarkozy did not speak to reporters after his meeting with Harper, continuing a tradition that his predecessor, Jacques Chirac, established leaving his PM Dominic de Villepin to talk to reporters.
As has become customary for press conferences involving Harper and foreign leaders, the press corps of each country was afforded one question each. For our part, we asked Harper about Liberal MP's Bob Rae's musings earlier this week that the Liberal Party could see a post-2011 Afghanistan mission that involved keeping Canadian troops in that country [Read the story about his response] and we asked him about the battle between Canada and many European countries, including France, over the issue of a global bank tax [Read that story here].
The French press corps asked a first question which must have delighted Canada's prime minister: Given the fact that Canada's federal government is in the best fiscal shape of the G8, what can France learn from Canada. The second question from the French press was for Fillon alone, about the fall of the euro and the ongoing currency crisis.