Golden ticket: why Versailles invite is the ‘real deal’ for Trump

For a US president who has likened himself to a king and redecorated the Oval Office with golden paint and gold ornaments , it feels like the perfect dinner venue. Donald Trump said one of the deciding factors in accepting an invitation to dine with Emmanuel Macron at the spectacular, 2,300-room Palace of Versailles was that it was “not gold leaf” but the “real deal”. The palace, set in grounds of more than 800 hectares (almost 2,000 acres) to the west of Paris, is both a historic seat of royal power and a symbol of the French Revolution. A state banquet in honour of King Charles and Queen Camilla in Versailles’ Hall of Mirrors in September 2023. Photograph: Daniel Leal/AFP/Getty Images One of the greatest achievements in 17th-century art, it was designed to be an architectural embodiment of the Sun King, Louis XIV, and was home to his great-great-great-grandson Louis XVI when the Women’s March on Versailles heralded the beginning of the end of the French monarchy in 1789. Of all modern French presidents, Macron has made most use of the palace as a symbol of French luxury, power and diplomacy. In 2017, he hosted Vladimir Putin there , driving the Russian leader around the grounds in an electric golf cart and holding a joint press event in a gallery of historic war paintings. In 2023, he hosted King Charles in the famed Hall of Mirrors and he regularly uses the palace as a showcase for investment summits. …