French President Emmanuel Macron visits the Chaptal High School on the first day of the new academic year, in Mende, southern France, Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2026. (Guillaume Horcajuelo\/Pool Photo via AP)<\/small><\/p>\n
2026-09-02T11:00:46Z<\/p>\n
LONDON (AP) \u2014 French President Emmanuel Macron<\/a><\/span> arrives in London on Wednesday to meet new Prime Minister Andy Burnham<\/a><\/span> and visit the Bayeux Tapestry<\/a><\/span> at its temporary home in the British Museum.<\/p>\n The two leaders and their spouses will join King Charles III<\/a><\/span> and Queen Camilla for a private viewing of the 230-foot (70-meter) tapestry, a 1,000-year-old symbol of Anglo-French relations that depicts the Norman conquest of England in 1066.<\/p>\n France loaned the embroidery, insured for 960 billion euros ($1.1 billion), for a 10-month exhibition that opens to the public on Sept. 10. It was spirited from Bayeux in northwest France to London by road and rail in a clandestine high-security operation<\/a><\/span> in July, the first time since the 11th century that it has touched British soil.<\/p>\n Burnham said the tapestry\u2019s return \u201cis a landmark moment in the history of our two nations.\u201d<\/p>\n Macron and the king will deliver speeches at a reception in the museum\u2019s Great Court for representatives from Britain and France involved in the loan and schoolchildren from both countries.<\/p>\n Stitched in wool thread on linen fabric, the artwork depicts events leading up to the Battle of Hastings in October 1066, when William, Duke of Normandy defeated King Harold\u2019s Anglo-Saxon army. The invasion ended Saxon rule, made William the Conqueror the first Norman king of England, and bound Britain and France together in a close and complicated relationship.<\/p>\n