Emmanuel Macron received Mohammed bin Salman in Paris this week for a two-day official visit culminating in the first meeting of a new Franco-Saudi Strategic Partnership Council. The gathering followed years of cautious re-engagement between the two countries, but this time the relationship gained a permanent institutional structure.
Agreements were signed stretching far beyond diplomacy, into energy, defence, investment and culture. The symbolism is difficult to miss.
Eight years after Jamal Khashoggi’s killing made the Saudi crown prince politically toxic in the West, Paris treats him as a central regional partner rather than a controversial guest. That shift did not happen overnight.
Understanding how it occurred says as much about France’s priorities as it does about Saudi Arabia’s rehabilitation.
A Partnership Becomes Permanent
Macron received bin Salman for a two-day official visit culminating in the first meeting of the Franco-Saudi Strategic Partnership Council. The body follows the strategic partnership announced during Macron’s 2024 state visit to Riyadh and organises cooperation across defence, energy, investment, transport and culture.
Bilateral trade already reached around $11.8 billion in 2025, according to the joint declaration issued after the talks.
France and Saudi Arabia also committed to closer cooperation in oil, petrochemicals, renewable electricity, nuclear energy and hydrogen. Those interests extend directly into security, with both governments seeking stronger coordination on regional conflicts, Iran’s nuclear programme and freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz.
Saudi Arabia’s recent search for new defence relationships has already altered the regional balance, particularly through security arrangements agreed with Turkey and Pakistan earlier this year.
Soft Power Carries Hard Investment
The visit began somewhere less conventional: the closing ceremony of the Esports World Cup in Paris. Saudi Arabia has invested heavily in gaming and international sport, and holding it outside the kingdom for the first time gave both governments an easy symbol of cultural cooperation.
Sport is only one part of Riyadh’s broader attempt to diversify its economy under Vision 2030, alongside expanding ambitions in football, aviation and tourism.
Paris is now becoming part of that experiment. During the visit, France announced a six billion euro Saudi-backed project for three theme parks near Cergy-Pontoise, northwest of Paris, expected to create around 22,000 jobs.
One is planned around the Dragon Ball franchise. That marks a striking reversal of the usual Vision 2030 formula, since Saudi capital is no longer merely importing foreign attractions into Riyadh but financing entertainment infrastructure inside France.
Khashoggi Has Not Disappeared
Economic enthusiasm does not erase the reason bin Salman once became a diplomatic liability. Jamal Khashoggi was murdered inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018, and a United Nations investigation concluded that Saudi Arabia bore responsibility for an extrajudicial killing.
US intelligence later assessed that bin Salman approved the operation, a claim Saudi authorities have rejected. Three French journalists’ unions protested against the latest visit, citing an existing French investigation linked to the killing.
The criticism recalls the controversy surrounding bin Salman’s earlier return to Paris in 2022, yet the political trajectory since then has been unmistakable. Macron became one of the first major Western leaders to meet the prince after the killing, visiting Saudi Arabia in 2021.
Subsequent crises involving energy, Iran and regional security steadily increased Riyadh’s diplomatic value. France has effectively decided that engagement offers more strategic value than isolation.
Riyadh Gains More Leverage
Saudi Arabia’s position has strengthened because it now sits at the intersection of several priorities that concern Paris. It remains a major oil exporter, but it is also investing aggressively in defence, clean energy, entertainment and technology.
Regional instability has increased its importance further, as Gulf governments acquire more influence over diplomacy involving Iran, Palestine and wider Middle Eastern security.
France, meanwhile, wants investment and regional access, since its own ability to shape events in the Middle East has weakened relative to Washington. Building stronger relationships with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states gives Paris channels it cannot easily reproduce elsewhere.
That logic has become increasingly visible since the Iran conflict altered Gulf security calculations. The partnership therefore goes considerably further than esports ceremonies or theme parks, since energy, defence and diplomacy provide its actual foundation.
Rehabilitation Turns into Normalisation
Bin Salman’s international rehabilitation did not happen because the Khashoggi case was resolved, but because governments gradually decided other interests outweighed it. France is hardly alone in reaching that conclusion, since Saudi Arabia controls capital, energy resources and diplomatic access at a moment when all three have become unusually valuable.
Macron’s approach is therefore understandable, but it deserves to be described accurately.
Paris has chosen strategic engagement despite unresolved human-rights concerns, rather than because those concerns somehow disappeared. The new partnership council makes that choice durable, since a relationship once cautiously restored after international condemnation is now being built into permanent institutions and investment projects.
Every agreement signed this week adds further weight to that structure.
Saudi Arabia has not simply returned from diplomatic isolation. France is helping ensure that such isolation becomes increasingly difficult to imagine happening again.
The theme parks and pipelines will fade from headlines long before the institutions built this week do.
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