Serbian prime minister visiting France

Serbian prime minister visiting France

After the welcoming ceremony, Vucic visited Napoleon's grave and laid a wreath at a plaque commemorating Serbian soldiers who fought as French allies in in the two Great Wars.

Vucic also met with Senate President Gerard Larcher later in the day.

The Serbian PM met with the country's top officials, including France's prime minister. He also attended a business forum where he spoke to representatives of large French companies.

The agenda of the visit is "exceptionally ambitious and includes political, European and economic topics," Tanjug reported.

According to Beta, Vucic said he would meet with French officials to discuss economic topics, Serbia's European road and the migrant crisis during his three-day visit to France.

He described the reception in Paris was "a sign of Serbia being respected again, of its important reputation and image."

Vucic said that one of the main reasons that he was visiting France had to do with talks on infrastructure projects and the participation of French companies in privatizing Serbian companies.

"Their companies want to enter the Belgrade Airport, to invest in projects in the area of environmental protection, a metro. We will also discuss raising the number of French company production facilities in Serbia, while their company Vichy is interested in investing in our spas," Vucic added.

According to him, the IT sector in Serbia can offer better conditions than those that Romania was offering, and that another discussion would be held on investment in the car industry.

"Significant"

France knows how significant Serbia's role in the Western Balkans is, and that is why it is strongly advocating Serbia's soonest possible EU accession, French Senate President Gerard Larcher told Serbian PM Aleksandar Vucic Thursday.

The meeting with Larcher was the start of Vucic's political discussions as part of a three-day visit to France.

Vucic and Larcher discussed ways of improving bilateral relations as well as cooperation between the Senate and the Serbian parliament, the situation in the Western Balkans and the migrant crisis, the Serbian government press office said in a statement.

Vucic thanked for France's support for Serbia's European path noting he was hopeful that Serbia would become even more attractive to French investors following successful economic reforms.

We are hoping to establish much closer political and economic ties, he said.