LONDON (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron arrives in London on Wednesday to meet with new U.K. Prime Minister Andy Burnham and visit the Bayeux Tapestry at its temporary home in the British Museum.
The two leaders and their spouses will join King Charles III 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.
France loaned the embroidery, insured for 960 million 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 in July, the first time since the 11th century that it has touched British soil.
Burnham said that the tapestry’s return “is a landmark moment in the history of our two nations.”
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Macron and the king will deliver speeches at a reception in the museum’s Great Court for representatives from Britain and France involved in the loan and schoolchildren from both countries.
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’s 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.
The year 1066 remains one of the most famous dates in British history, and the loan of the tapestry is being treated as a major cultural moment. Burnham’s government said Wednesday that a digital exhibition will bring its story to venues across the U.K., and schoolchildren will take part in a “live national history lesson” on the subject on Oct. 14.
The loan was announced during Macron’s state visit to the U.K. in July 2025. In return, the British Museum is lending items, including Viking and Anglo-Saxon treasures to museums in Normandy.
Burnham, who took office six weeks ago, will host Macron for talks at 10 Downing St. on Thursday. Burnham’s office said that efforts to stop migrants crossing the Channel in small boats will top the agenda. The U.K. government says stepped-up law enforcement cooperation between Britain and France has helped reduce the number of people making the crossing this year by more than 40% compared to last year.
The Iran and the Russia-Ukraine wars are also likely to feature in the conversations. France and the U.K. have led efforts to bolster European support for Ukraine during its more than 4½-year war against Russia’s full-scale invasion, and Burnham has vowed to maintain British backing for Kyiv.
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The prime minister also wants to forge closer ties with the European Union to end what he has called a “decade of low growth” caused by Brexit after a 2016 referendum.
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A previous version of this story was corrected to show that the cost of insuring the tapestry on loan to the British Museum is 960 million euros, not 960 billion euros.
