French president Emmanuel Macron welcomed in Monaco for historic visit
Macron and his wife received traditional military honours from Prince Albert II and Princess Charlene of Monaco in a ceremony at the Prince's Palace.
Monaco, in a post on Facebook, hailed its relationship with France, saying the principality and Paris have a strong bond of friendship with an open border.
The palace said Monaco and France cooperate in many fields, from health to safety to culture and education, stressing that both states were focused on a more sustainable future.
According to the Prince's Palace, more than 40,000 French citizens cross the border each day to work in Monaco, and the trip by Macron presented an opportunity to discuss bilateral issues and those of mutual interest.
Macron's two-day visit is the first state visit to Monaco by a French president since that of François Mitterrand in 1984.
It also comes ahead of the United Nations Ocean Conference in Nice on Tuesday, which Macron is billed to attend alongside other global leaders, with the EU expected to formally launch the "European Ocean Pact."
The pact seeks to address climate and pollution threats to biodiversity, as well as challenges for coastal livelihoods.
Meanwhile, the European Commissioner for Fisheries and Oceans, Costas Kadis, on Saturday described the pact as a shared roadmap for ocean health and marine sustainability.
Kadis said this during a key speech at the Blue Economy and Finance Forum in Monaco ahead of the UN Ocean Conference.
"In the context of this year's UN Ocean Conference, we have pledged approximately €1 billion in voluntary commitments for ocean and coastal biodiversity and climate," Kadis told the forum.
This support extends beyond the EU, also targeting dedicated initiatives across Africa, the Pacific, and Latin America," the EU commissioner said during his address.
However promising, some NGO groups have taken a jab at the pact, saying it falls short of needs and is a missed opportunity.
In a joint statement, a group of six leading environmental NGOs said the pact falls short of delivering the urgent action and binding targets that are needed to protect oceans.
Co-hosted by France and Costa Rica, the 3rd UN Ocean Conference runs from 9 to 13 June.
US President Donald Trump on Saturday made clear he was not interested in repairing the relationship with his former ally and campaign benefactor Elon Musk, warning Musk could face 'serious consequences' if he tries to back the opposition.
In a phone interview with NBC's Kristen Welker, Trump said that he has no intention of reconciling with Musk. And, when asked specifically if he thought his relationship with the mega-billionaire CEO of Tesla and SpaceX was over, Trump responded, 'I would assume so, yeah.'
'I'm too busy doing other things,' Trump continued. 'You know, I won an election in a landslide. I gave him a lot of breaks long before this happened. I gave him breaks in my first administration and saved his life in my first administration. I have no intention of speaking to him.'
The US president also issued a warning amid chatter that Musk could back Democratic lawmakers and candidates in the 2026 midterm elections.
'If he does, he'll have to pay the consequences for that,' Trump told NBC, though he declined to share what those consequences would be. Musk's businesses have many lucrative federal contracts.
The latest comes after a spectacular fallout in the relationship between the US president and the world's richest man over Trump's budget bill that Musk began to criticise on his social media platform X earlier in the week.
Musk warned that the bill would increase the federal deficit and called it a 'disgusting abomination.'
According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the bill would slash spending and taxes but also leave some 10.9 million more people without health insurance and spike deficits by $2.4 trillion over the decade.
On Thursday, Trump criticised Musk's strong reaction to his 'big beautiful bill' pending before Congress, and before long, he and Musk began trading bitter personal attacks on social media, sending the White House and GOP congressional leaders scrambling to assess the fallout.
As the back-and-forth intensified, Musk suggested Trump should be impeached and claimed without evidence that the government was concealing information about the president's association with infamous pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, a claim the Tesla boss appeared to have walked back from by deleting his tweet about Epstein on Saturday.
Speaking in an interview with ' manosphere' comedian Theo Von, US Vice President JD Vance tried to downplay the feud. He said Musk was making a 'huge mistake' going after Trump, calling him an 'emotional guy' getting frustrated.
'I hope that eventually Elon comes back into the fold. Maybe that's not possible now because he's gone so nuclear,' Vance said.
Vance called Musk an 'incredible entrepreneur said that Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, which sought to cut government spending and laid off or pushed out thousands of workers, was 'really good.'
The US Vice President said the bill's central goal was not to cut spending but to extend the 2017 tax cuts approved in Trump's first term.
'It's a good bill,' Vance said. 'It's not a perfect bill.'
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