China’s Xi visits Pyrenees mountains, in a personal gesture by France’s Macron

TOURMALET PASS, France (AP) — France’s president is hosting China’s leader at a remote mountain pass in the Pyrenees on Tuesday for private meetings. The trip comes after a high-stakes state visit in Paris dominated by trade disputes and tensions over Russia’s war in Ukraine. French President Emmanuel Macron invited Chinese President Xi Jinping to the Tourmalet Pass near the Spanish border, where Macron spent time as a child visiting his grandmother. It is meant to be a reciprocal gesture after Xi took Macron last year to a place where the Chinese president’s father once lived. Xi is on a trip to Europe that takes him next to Serbia and Hungary.