Chronicle Of Meetings Of Presidents Of Russia And France (the Years Of 1992-2001)

The first official visit by the president of Russia to France (Boris Yeltsin held this post at that time) took place on February 5-7, 1992. A large package of documents was signed, among them a protocol on economic and financial questions envisaging the extension of credits to Russia for purchasing foodstuffs, machines and equipment to a total of 5.8 billion francs. On March 16, 1993 president of France Francois Mitterand paid an official visit to Moscow. Issues related to banks of France extending credits to a total of 1.5 billion francs to the government of the Russian Federation; trade and economic cooperation in the aircraft-building and space industries; and the approaches in settling the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina were discussed at a meeting with president of Russia Boris Yeltsin. In September 1995 president of the Russian Federation Boris Yeltsin stopped in Paris en route to New York to attend there the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the United Nations, and paid a new visit to France in October of that same year. The situation in former Yugoslavia and Russia's participation in the multinational peace-keeping forces in Bosnia were discussed during the talks with president Jacques Chirac. An agreement between the Russian military-industrial complex MAPO and the Snecma company of France on joint production of the MIG-AT trainer aircraft was signed in September 1997 within the framework of Jacques Chirac's official visit to Moscow. In March 1998 presidents of Russia and France Boris Yeltsin and Jacques Chirac met in the Moscow Region at a tripartite Russian-French-German summit. The meeting of Boris Yeltsin and Jacques Chirac at the summit of the G-8 heads of state in Birmingham (Great Britain) took place in May 1998. On May 13, 1999 in Moscow presidents of the Russian Federation and France Boris Yeltsin and Jacques Chirac discussed some parameters of a political settlement of the Kosovo crisis. The first official visit by new Russian president Vladimir Putin to France took place on October 30 - November 1, 2000. He formulated the purpose of his visit as follows: "to give a new breathing to Russian-French relations and to re-enhance their privileged character". The Russian leader stressed that the two countries had close approaches and often "also coinciding stands on quite a number of key problems of international security, in particular, in the stands on the Middle East and Balkans. In Vladimir Putin's opinion, it is necessary to set up a more flexible mechanism for interaction between the two countries' business communities in the sphere of bilateral economic cooperation. An official visit by president of France Jacques Chirac to Russia took place on July 1-3, 2001. A joint statement on the questions of strategic stability was adopted and a number of bilateral documents was signed on the results of the Russian-French talks. The list of the documents included an intergovernmental agreement on air communication, a programme of cooperation between the Russian Aerospace Agency and the European Aerospace Consortium, an additional agreement on cooperation for 2001-2002 in the field of support of entrepreneurship between the Ministry of Anti-Trust Policy and Support of Entrepreneurship of Russia and the State Secretariat on Questions of Small and Medium-Size Enterprises, Trade, Handicrafts and Consumption under the Ministry for the Economy, Finance and Industry of France.