TAORMINA: President Emmanuel Macron on Friday vowed France’s total support for Britain’s fight against terrorism after the Manchester attack as he met Prime Minister Theresa May at the G-7 summit.
“We will be here to cooperate and do everything we can in order to increase this cooperation at the European level, in order to do more from a bilateral point of view against terrorism,” Macron told her, in their first formal meeting since he took office.
The bombing of a pop concert in Manchester on Monday night, which left 22 people dead, came a year-and-a-half after another assault claimed by the Daesh group at a rock show at the Bataclan in Paris.
Speaking to May in English, Macron said: “We know this kind of attack, we know how this can hurt the people of your country, but more generally for Europe, because they attack our young.”
Seated next to the French president in front of EU, UK and French flags, May said it was “one of our worst terrorist incidents that we’ve ever experienced.”
“Thank you for the solidarity you have shown to us since that event. But of course France itself knows what it is like to suffer from terrorist attacks,” she told him.
“And these incidents show us why it is so important for us to work together in defeating terrorism.”
May was due to lead a discussion on counter-terrorism with fellow G-7 leaders on Friday — including US President Donald Trump — and call for them to put more pressure on Internet companies to remove extremist content.
After Britain raised its national threat level to maximum after the attack, May announced she would no longer attend the second day of the summit in the Sicilian town of Taormina on Saturday, and instead fly home late Friday.
Macron and May first met in February in London. He was still only a presidential candidate, but was invited to Downing Street for talks, including on Britain’s withdrawal from the EU.
Both leaders said Friday they would discuss defense, trade and economic issues, while Macron also made reference to the millions of Europeans living in Britain, whose fate after Brexit has yet to be decided.
There are “hundreds of thousands of people living in your country, in our country, and sharing our lives,” he said.
France to ‘do everything we can’ to help Britain fight terror: Macron
France to ‘do everything we can’ to help Britain fight terror: Macron
Philippines seeks to regain Chinese visitors as arrivals lag behind regional rivals
- 262,000 Chinese tourists visited Philippines in 2025, compared to 1.7m in 2019
- Vietnam is top destination for Chinese travelers, with about 4.8m visitors this year
MANILLA: The Philippines is trailing behind other countries in Southeast Asia in winning back Chinese tourists, with arrivals well below a quarter of pre-pandemic levels so far this year, latest data showed.
Known for its white sandy beaches, famous diving spots and diverse culture, the Philippines was welcoming an increasing number of Chinese tourists in the period before the pandemic, with the number peaking at over 1.7 million in 2019, when it was the second-largest source market after South Korea.
But the post-pandemic rebound has been slow, with China ranking sixth among international arrivals and the number of Chinese visitors reaching only 262,000 as of Dec. 20, according to data from the Philippine Department of Tourism.
“China remains one of the country’s largest and most important source markets,” the tourism department said earlier this week.
Chinese arrivals this year are equivalent to only around 15 percent of the numbers in 2019 and there is stiff competition with regional rivals like Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia each welcoming at least 1 million tourists from China in 2025.
Vietnam has become Chinese travelers’ top travel destination in Southeast Asia with around 4.8 million visitors so far this year, followed by Thailand, which has recorded about 4.36 million.
China is Singapore’s top source market, with nearly 3 million visitors as of November.
To attract more visitors from China, the Philippines reintroduced electronic visas for Chinese travelers in November, after suspending the system for two years.
“The eVisa resumption is a critical step forward and a clear signal that the Philippines is open, ready, and eager to welcome our Chinese friends,” said Ireneo Reyes, the tourism attache to China.
“While the timing meant that its full benefits could not be felt within the peak booking periods of 2025, we expect a more visible impact beginning the first quarter of 2026.”
The Philippine tourism department said that “recovery has also been constrained by reduced flight capacity, with China-Philippines routes operating at only about 45 percent of pre-pandemic levels,” adding that officials were working closely with relevant stakeholders to “rebuild connectivity and confidence.”
Tourism is an important sector in the Philippine economy, according to a report by the ASEAN+3 Macroeconomic Research Office, accounting for about 13.2 percent of the country’s gross domestic product last year and making up around 13.8 percent of its labor force.
