Outside of Paris, few French cities have had the honor of seeing Elizabeth II. The sovereign will have seen the Châteaux of the Loire, Alsace, Normandy… and Toulouse! It was son penultimate state visit in France, in 2004.
On April 7, 2004, the Queen made a three-day stay in France by spending six hours in Toulouse. She visits the Jacobins and meeting on the forecourt of students and teachers of English from the neighboring Lycée Fermat (photo below).
– David Becus
Before lunch, she stops ten minutes place du Capitole and briefly meets a few people from Toulouse. It is at the Capitol that Elizabeth II has lunch, alongside the mayor at the time Philippe Douste-Blazy who has just been appointed Minister of Health and will soon give up his Toulouse seat to Jean-Luc Moudenc. Justice Minister Dominique Perben and First Lady Bernadette Chirac complete the official escort that day.
– David Becus
Last stage of the Toulouse visit of Elizabeth II and her husband Philip: the essential Airbus, symbol of Franco-British cooperation. In Colomiers, in the manufacturers’ factories, she gave a speech in perfect French, and symbolically baptized an A340 from the English company Virgin. The first is no longer produced, the second no longer exists.
The royal spouses leave Toulouse at the end of the afternoon to reach London. The Queen of England, to whom the merits of Fronton wine, foie gras from the South-West and violets will have been extolled, will have spent almost six hours in Haute-Garonne on Wednesday April 7, 2004. She will not will return to France only ten years later.