For a month, everyone has been talking about how Europe and President Trump do not get along.  Perhaps they don't, but they still need for Mr. Trump to succeed – or better put, for the U.S. economy to start growing. 

This is from Bloomberg: 

Donald Trump famously said in February that "Paris is no longer Paris." After Emmanuel Macron showed him the town and met with him at the gilded Élysée Palace, the American president ladled praise on the French capital and the country's 39-year-old leader.

He even suggested that his opposition to the Paris climate accord isn't set in stone.

It was Macron's fourth meeting with Trump since his election in May. The two have acrimoniously clashed over climate change and Macron has made not-so-hidden allusions to his opposition to building "walls," but in this latest encounter they stressed their common positions, from trade to terrorism. Preceding the visit, French officials laid out their strategy to approach Trump: hold your ground where you disagree, and pivot to areas of agreement. And don't forget his love of pomp and the military.

As both leaders prepare to attend the Bastille Day parade together on Friday, that strategy appears to have worked.

"You have a great president, and I think you're going to have a very peaceful and beautiful Paris, and I'm coming back," Trump said on Thursday at a news conference with Macron.

Why is everyone so surprised?  Macron needs a strong U.S. economy desperately. 

According to a report last April, France has a weak GDP growth (1.2%), projected to be only 1.7% in 2017.  Also, youth unemployment, a social time bomb like no other, is 20-something percent.  Generous welfare benefits are inching to being unsustainable.  And the health care system needs more cash.

And let's not forget the war on terror.  France has recently been ground zero for terrorist attacks.

So Macron needs a strong U.S. president a lot.  I think he has found that man in Trump after the weakness, and slow economic growth, of the Obama years.

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