Counter-terrorism efforts scheduled to be on the forefront of President’s Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi first official meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday.
Al-Sisi heads to France to hold a joint press conference with Macron at Élysée Palace, where they will address strengthening the existing mutual partnerships in political, economic and military fields, as well as discussing regional issues of common concern.
Among the current common challenges between both countries, is not only efforts to resettle regional conflicts, but even confrontation for threats of internal terrorism occurring in Egypt and France, and European countries.
Throughout the past period, coordination between Egypt and France increased in field of counter-terrorism, as both countries have faced major internal terror attacks that killed a number of civilians and security forces.
Since taking the office in May, Macron was keen to emphasize his country’s condemnation for major attacks and voiced his country full solidarity with Egypt in countering terrorism that poses a threat to the whole world.
Egypt has faced number of deadliest attacks against army and security personal, churches and Coptic Christians throughout past four years, particularly following the ouster of former Islamist president Mohamed Morsi and the end of the Muslim Brotherhood regime.
Similarly, attacks ranging from shooting, vehicle ramming, beheading and stabbing began in France since 2012, reaching at least the death of 84 people including children, after a lorry slammed into a group of people celebrating Bastille Day in the southern French city of Nice.
In addition to threats in both countries, terrorism is on rise in European countries in plots between 2015 and 2016, in which raise expectations that mutual counter-terror efforts could increase to prepare a unified strategy.
Moreover, France has highly contributed in benefiting the Egyptian military level through strengthening the air and naval capabilities of the armed forces.
Bilateral relations between Egypt and France have been stable recently, after a period of tension that followed the crash of a flight en route from France to Egypt. In First phone call between both leaders in May, they agreed to continue cooperation in investigations of the crash of EgyptAir flight MS804 from Paris last year.
Moreover, Both countries common strategies towards illegal immigration, as Egypt has approved a law to ban illegal immigration and human trafficking, and France has opened opportunities to asylum seekers. According to the European Union’s statistics agency, France granted asylum to 2,030 refugees by 2015.
Egypt is receiving the largest number of refugees particularly after Arab spring revolutions, and has been urged multiple time to intensify border controls and accelerate the process of returning migrants whose applications for asylum had been rejected.
