Harris arrives in France in effort to mend relations

PARIS－US Vice-President Kamala Harris kicks off a four-day visit to France in further efforts to mend relations with Paris after a crisis sparked by a canceled submarines contract.

Harris was scheduled to meet with French President Emmanuel Macron later on Wednesday at the presidential Elysee Palace on the second day of her four-day trip to France.

Harris and Macron were expected to discuss global health, space and other issues. She was also scheduled to attend a peace forum with other world leaders on Thursday, and an international conference on Libya on Friday.

Her trip comes after a huge France-US row erupted in September when Australia walked out of a multibillion-dollar submarines deal with Paris in favor of an alternative one with the United States.

During a tour of the Pasteur Institute in Paris on Tuesday, where Harris' mother conducted cancer research in the 1980s, the vice-president compared politics to scientific research. "There will be glitches and there will be mistakes," she said. "If you don't make the same mistake twice… that's a good process and we should encourage it."

She talked of joint determination to tackle global challenges, especially to end the coronavirus pandemic.

The visit was announced after the subs row, and comes after Secretary of State Antony Blinken was dispatched in early October in the first attempt to fix the crisis.

US President Joe Biden also sought to make amends over the dispute during a meeting with Macron last month, telling the French leader that his government had been "clumsy" in the way it secured the submarines deal with Australia.

Nuclear reactors backed

On Tuesday evening, Macron said France will relaunch the construction of nuclear reactors to "guarantee France's energy independence".

In his address to the nation, Macron said "we will, for the first time in decades, relaunch the construction of nuclear reactors in our country and to continue to develop renewable energies", in response to soaring fuel prices and increasing gas and electricity bills that French people have faced in recent weeks.

He explained that this is to "guarantee France's energy independence, to guarantee our country's electricity supply and to achieve our objectives, in particular carbon neutrality by 2050".

Facing soaring fuel prices, the French government announced last month a special inflation allowance of 100 euros ($116) for people with a net monthly income of less than 2,000 euros.

Also, gas prices will be frozen throughout 2022 to deal with the record spike in energy prices.

Agencies - Xinhua