French President Emmanuel Macron arrived in Damascus on Monday evening for the first visit by a Western European head of state since new Syrian authorities took power in December 2024.
Syrian Foreign Minister Assad al-Shaibani welcomed the French leader and his Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot at the airport.
“I come to express France’s commitment to the Syrian people. To a sovereign Syria, united in its diversity and living at peace with its neighbours,” Macron wrote online shortly after his arrival.
“Let us together open a new chapter of stability and peace.”
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen visited Damascus at the beginning of the year, as did Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Syria hails ‘important’ visit
President Ahmed al-Sharaa is trying to rehabilitate Syria’s international credibility and revive ties with other countries since 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 “an important 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 trip to Berlin to meet Chancellor Friedrich Mertz and Washington for talks with Donald Trump’s administration.
Given that al-Shaara was once subject to widespread sanctions as the founder and leader of the terrorist group called al-Nusra Front, it was uncertain whether Western powers would welcome his rapid rise to the presidency. Macron was the leading voice calling for the lifting of these restrictions in an effort to mark a new turn.
No French president had visited Syria since Nicolas Sarkozy in 2009, shortly before Assad’s regime stepped up a brutal crackdown on opposition protests, ultimately resulting in more than a decade of civil war on multiple fronts.
Although much has improved, the security situation in Syria remains tense more than 18 months after the fall of Assad.
A bombing at a café in Damascus last week killed 10 people. Various attacks on religious minorities in the country have been blamed on so-called Islamic State militants, and government forces have maintained 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, pluralistic Syria’
The French president told reporters ahead of the visit that Macron would advocate for “an independent, pluralistic Syria that respects each of its components.”
A number of key business players are accompanying the president, such as Rodolphe Saade, chief executive of maritime transport giant CMA CGM, and TotalEnergies boss Patrick Pouyane.
The talks are likely to discuss reconstruction efforts and investment security, with French businesses still reportedly wary of returning to former battlefields.
Macron’s agenda listed plans for “informal” talks with al-Sharaa ahead of official meetings on Tuesday.
After sectarian bloodshed targeting Alawite and Druze strongholds last year and a battle for control of partly Kurdish areas near the Turkish and Iraqi borders, Macron is expected to pressure al-Sharaa, a former Sunni militia group leader, to fulfill his pledges to protect minorities in Syria after taking power.
The fight against Islamic State and the ongoing presence of a handful of French jihadists on Syrian soil are also likely to be included. Al-Shara’a’s Syria joined the international anti-IS coalition last year.
The Elysee Palace also said on Monday that, now that the civil war is over, Macron will return 23 archaeological artifacts from the Mesopotamian, Canaanite, Nabataean, Palmyrene, Roman, Byzantine and Umayyad civilizations that “were loaned to the Arab World Institute”. [in Paris] in 2010 and who, for obvious reasons, were not able to return to Syria.”
Al-Sharaa, whose main supporter during the internal conflict was neighboring Türkiye, is also expected to attend a NATO summit in Ankara this week. The White House has said that US President Donald Trump will talk to him on the sidelines of the program.
Edited by: Zack Crellin
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