France and China need stronger-than-ever relations to jointly battle the logic of fragmentation and isolation as well as other global challenges, said French Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs Jean-Noel Barrot in Beijing Thursday during his first visit to China.
Barrot made the remarks when delivering a speech to faculty and students in Beijing Language and Culture University, the first stop of his two-day visit.
He also visited the university's China-France Humanities Exchange Space, which is scheduled to be launched in June.
In his speech, Barrot reviewed the history of the two countries' exchanges and emphasized the uniqueness and the importance of the relations between France and China.
He said this year, there are three priorities in France-China cooperation: to promote the resolution of international crises, humanistic exchanges and joint responses to global challenges.
"The message of my visit, as you have already understood, is simple. We need a relation between France and China that is stronger than ever. More than ever, the current situation calls for a powerful Franco-Chinese partnership in the service of geopolitical stability, prosperity and the future of our planet," he said.
He also stressed that against the current global backdrop, Europe has been more and more firmly emphasizing strategic autonomy, and he believes that Europe and China will continue to deepen partnership and overcome differences and divergences.
"What I want to tell you is that we must collectively overcome the logic of fragmentation and isolation that some people are trying to impose on us. Global challenges transcend individual interests and, more than ever, we need open, prepared, agile and enlightened minds and you've come to the right place [to find them]," he said.
"We need stronger-than-ever France-China relations": French FM
China's domestically developed C919 large passenger aircraft began flight transport service on two new routes on Sunday.
At 11:19 on Sunday, a C919 aircraft smoothly landed at the Shenyang Taoxian International Airport in Shenyang City, the capital of northeast China's Liaoning Province, from Shanghai in east China some 1,000 kilometers away, marking the C919's first commercial flight in northeast China. The airport celebrated the occasion with a water salute.
"The seats are very spacious, and the flight experience is excellent," said a passenger.
"Flying on a homegrown plane feels especially smooth. I took the inaugural C919 flight to Chengdu, and unexpectedly, within a year, more than a dozen routes have been launched. I think the airline operations in our country are particularly impressive," said another passenger.
The other new air route opened on the day for the C919 is the one from northwest China's Xi'an City to south China's Guangzhou City about 1,400 kilometers away.
The Xi'an-Guangzhou service became the third domestic air route operated from Xi'an to use the C919, following China Eastern Airlines' earlier introduction of this aircraft on its Xi'an-Beijing and Xi'an-Shanghai routes. This also means that the Xianyang International Airport in Xi'an has become a major airport in China in terms of flights performed by the C919.
Notably, China Eastern Airlines in January 2025 started using the C919 jetliner for regular flights between Shanghai in east China and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region in the country's south -- which is the airline's first scheduled commercial flight service to Hong Kong using the C919.
The C919 is a narrow-body passenger aircraft with a maximum capacity of 192 seats. It is China's first self-developed trunk jetliner, built in accordance with international airworthiness standards and featuring independently registered intellectual property rights.
China initiated the C919 project in 2007, and it was developed by the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China, Ltd. (COMAC). The first C919 aircraft rolled off the production line in Shanghai in November 2015.
China's homegrown C919 aircraft begins to serve two new domestic air routes
