Emmanuel Macron visits Syria, 18 months after Assad's fall

The French president landed in Damascus on Monday evening. He's the first EU leader to visit the country since Bashar Assad's sudden downfall and the rise of former militant-turned-president Ahmed al-Sharaa.

French President Emmanuel Macron arrived in Damascus on Monday evening for the first visit by a Western European head of state since Syria's new authorities took power in December 2024.

Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani welcomed the French leader and his Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot at the airport.

"I have come to express France's commitment to the Syrian people. For a sovereign Syria, united in its diversity and at peace with its neighbours," Macron wrote online soon after arrival.

"Together, let us open a new chapter of stability and peace."

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen visited Damascus earlier in the year, as did Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Syria hails 'pivotal' visit

President Ahmed al-Sharaa has been trying to reboot Syria's international credentials and revive ties with other countries since the militias under his control seized power from former dictator Bashar Assad after more than a decade of civil war.

Syrian state news agency SANA described Macron's visit as "a pivotal step in the process of restoring Syria's international presence."

In May 2025, Macron hosted al-Sharaa on his first official visit to an EU country, a move that preceded the Syrian leader's visits to Berlin to meet Chancellor Friedrich Merz and to Washington for talks with Donald Trump's administration.

Given that al-Sharaa was once subject to extensive sanctions as the founder and leader of the terrorist group known as the al-Nusra Front, it was anything but certain whether Western powers would welcome his rapid rise to the presidency. Macron was a leading voice in calling for these sanctions to be lifted as part of a bid to turn a new page.

No French president had visited Syria since Nicolas Sarkozy in 2009, not long before Assad's regime intensified a brutal crackdown on opposition protests that ultimately led to more than a decade of civil war across multiple fronts.

Although drastically improved, the security situation in Syria remains tense more than 18 months after Assad's fall.

A bomb blast at a Damascus café last week killed 10 people, various attacks on religious minorities in the country have been blamed on so-called Islamic State militants, and the government's forces retain a difficult relationship with Kurdish forces based in the north and east, with whom they were in open combat as recently as January.

Macron calls for 'free, pluralist Syria'

The French presidency told journalists ahead of the trip that Macron would advocate for "a free, pluralist Syria that respects each of its components."

Several key business figures, including Rodolphe Saade, chief executive of maritime transport giant CMA CGM, and TotalEnergies boss Patrick Pouyanne, are accompanying the president.

Reconstruction efforts and investment security are likely to feature in the talks, with French businesses still reportedly wary of returning to the former war zone.

Macron's programme listed plans for "informal" talks with al-Sharaa ahead of official meetings on Tuesday.

After sectarian bloodshed targeting Alawite and Druze heartlands last year, and the battle for control of partly Kurdish areas near the Turkish and Iraqi borders, Macron is expected to press the former Sunni militia group leader al-Sharaa on his pledges to protect minorities in Syria after taking power.

The fight against the Islamic State and the ongoing presence of a handful of French jihadis on Syrian soil are also likely to feature. Al-Sharaa's Syria joined the international anti-IS coalition last year.

The Élysée Palace also said on Monday that, now that the civil war had ended, Macron would be returning 23 archaeological artefacts from the Mesopotamian, Canaanite, Nabataean, Palmyrene, Roman, Byzantine and Umayyad civilisations, which "were loaned to the Arab World Institute [in Paris] in 2010 and which, for obvious reasons, were not able to be returned to Syria."

Al-Sharaa, whose main backer during the internal conflict was neighbouring Turkey, is also expected at this week's Nato summit in Ankara. The White House has said US President Donald Trump will speak to him on the sidelines of the event.