Chinese President Xi Jinping paid a special visit to a place close to the heart of French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday, getting a flavor of some of the local delicacies and taking in the traditional culture of a picturesque mountain resort in the French Pyrenees.
After a series of high-level talks on bilateral relations in Paris on Monday, Xi's engagement with his French counterpart took on a more personal tone on Tuesday as he arrived in Tarbes in the Hautes-Pyrenees Department of southwestern France.
Tarbes is a location which Macron has cherished since childhood, and he and his wife Brigitte warmly greeted Xi and his wife Peng Liyuan to the mountainous destination, which is also home to dozens of ski resorts.
After watching a traditional folk dance performance, the two presidential couples shared local cuisines together at a restaurant named L'Etape du Berger, situated in the Col du Tourmalet mountain pass, amid a relaxed and cordial atmosphere.
French media unveiled the featured dishes enjoyed by the two presidents included lamb shoulder, black pork ham, cheeses, and blueberry pie -- all of which are notable local specialties, while a local business owner said that President Xi was served locally-grown produce.
According to French media reports, Macron used to frequent the L'Etape du Berger eatery with his grandparents when he was a teenager as he often spent summers nearby.
Macron described Tarbes as his "place of truth," and said that he hopes this special meeting with Xi here would help give wider recognition to the area.
The choice of visit to the Hautes-Pyrenees Department was seen as a reciprocation of Macron's stay in south China's Guangzhou last April, where the French president was invited to Songyuan, also known as the "Pine Garden" at the Guangdong provincial governor's residence, a place where President Xi's father, Xi Zhongxun, had resided when he held the post back in the 1980s.
Xi, Macron share local specialties at restaurant nestled among mountains
A total of 11 tech groups from the Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE) are conducting the sampling mission in 16 provinces in the Yangtze River Basin from April to June this year to monitor the ecological environment in the longest river in China.
Researchers were collecting samples of aquatic organisms in the Poyang Lake section of the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River.
Poyang Lake is the largest lake that is connected to the Yangtze River in the middle and lower reaches.
It is an important spawning and feeding ground for fish in the Yangtze River, and also an important habitat for rare aquatic organisms such as finless porpoises. It plays an important role in maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem structure in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River.
"We need to monitor the basic water quality parameters, as well as three major categories: phytoplankton, zooplankton, and benthic organisms. We collect samples from the bottom, the middle, and the surface, in order to identify the distribution of organisms across various levels. The white organisms (in the bottle) that occasionally jump are zooplankton," said Hu Sheng, senior engineer of the Yangtze River Basin Ecological Environment Supervision and Administration Bureau.
In order to ensure the quality, the samples were screened and sealed immediately after collection, and then taken to the monitoring ship for fixation.
Nowadays it is common to see finless porpoises in the Yangtze River. According to statistics, the number of finless porpoises in the Yangtze River has reached 1,249, achieving a historic rebound.
"The finless porpoise is the flagship species in the Yangtze River and the species at the top of the food chain. When the fish population recovers and the finless porpoises have more food, its population will also increase," said Zhang Jing, senior engineer of the Yangtze River Basin Ecological Environment Supervision and Administration Bureau.
The pilot monitoring of water ecology assessment in the Yangtze River Basin began in 2022 and has been carried out for three consecutive years, and this year is the last pilot year.
"In the next step, we will conduct a comprehensive and systematic analysis and evaluation of the monitoring data to lay a good foundation for the formal water ecological assessment work in the Yangtze River Basin next year," said Xu Chong, head of the Yangtze River Basin Ecological Environment Supervision and Administration Bureau.
China conducts last pilot ecological assessment in Yangtze River
