Queen Elizabeth love France we love her back, French pay tribute

While Britain’s longest reigning monarch “held a special place in the hearts of French people”, as President Emmanuel Macron put it, one place in the French capital was especially important to the Queen.
The late Queen, who died on Thursday aged 96, visited France more than any other foreign country, meeting all 10 French presidents who took turns at the Élysée Palace during her 70 years on the throne.
“Elizabeth II mastered our language, loved our culture and touched our hearts,” Macron said in English in a video message on Friday.
“We are grateful for her deep affection for France.”
The Queen made the last of her five state visits to France in 2014, to mark the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings. Stopping in Paris at the end of the trip, she unveiled a plaque at a flower market that was renamed in her honour.
The ceremony was a “fitting tribute” to the Queen, said Mélissandre Somenzi, owner of the Cité des fleurs, a flower stall run by three generations of her family.
“British people have a soft spot for flowers and the Queen especially so,” she said, holding up a picture of the Queen visiting her stall, accompanied by former French president François Hollande and the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo.
“People from the UK are always happy to see this picture when they tour the market,” she said. “The Queen loved France and France loved her back.”
Elizabeth was a 22-year-old princess when she first visited the marché aux fleurs in central Paris in 1948, a year after her wedding. She would keep fond memories of the quaint little market on the île de la Cité, a few steps away from Notre-Dame Cathedral.
“I still picture her the way she looked that day – as if she were right in front of me,” said Françoise, a regular customer of the flower market, recalling her chance encounter with the young Elizabeth back in 1948.
Françoise, then a teenager, had arranged to meet her school friends on the banks of the Seine, unaware that the future Queen of England would sail up the river in the heart of Paris, pregnant with her first son Charles.
“There were so many people lining the Seine, I never found my friends,” she recalled. “But I saw the Queen instead!”
Reflecting on Elizabeth’s long reign, Françoise stressed her grace, tact and diplomacy. “I feel a lot of grief today,” she said. “In fact, I think the whole world is grieving.”
Grieving visitors included American couple Michael and Deanna Garringer, from New Mexico, who paused in front of the picture of the Queen outside the Cité des fleurs.
“We were very sad to hear the news, she was much loved and respected in America,” said Deanna Garringer, for whom the Queen’s long reign helped bring the US and its former colonial power closer together. FRANCE 24