Deals were struck in the fields of aeronautics, energy and agriculture, including approval for 20 French companies to export poultry, beef and pork to China.

They also agreed to expand a protocol for poultry exports reached this year to include duck and geese as well as foie gras, and to work on a protocol allowing France to export pig semen to China, said a statement from Macron’s office.

Macron arrived in China on Monday and was due to leave later on Wednesday.

Energy deals included a memorandum of understanding between Beijing Gas Group and French utility Engie to collaborate on a liquefied natural gas terminal and storage in the northern city of Tianjin.

An executive with Beijing Gas Group told Reuters that the cooperation with Engie would include the French firm supplying membrane technology, used for gas leak prevention, in the massive gas storage projects that China is embarking on.

Among other deals, France’s Total will set up a joint venture with China’s Shenergy Group to distribute LNG by truck in the Yangtze River Delta.

The two countries also agreed to reach an agreement by the end of January on the cost and location of a nuclear fuel reprocessing facility to be built by Orano, formerly known as Areva.

Previous plans to build the plant in Lianyungang in eastern China’s Jiangsu province were cancelled after protests.

Separately, Chinese state news agency Xinhua said China would support its firms’ purchases of Airbus aircraft.

Xinhua said the two countries agreed to work together to push forward the completion and delivery centre programme of the European planemaker’s A350 model, as well as step up investment by Airbus in China.

China and France hope to boost cooperation, particularly in the helicopter sector as well as on aircraft engines and pilot training, it said.

Airbus, in a separate press release, said its Tianjin completion and delivery centre in northern China was expected to deliver the first A350 widebody jet by 2021.

– Additional reporting by Aizhu Chen in Singapore

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The EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) provisionally took effect from September 2017, but still needs to be approved by all 28 EU member states.

Opponents of CETA say it will bring unfair competition to French farmers as Canada’s environmental legislation is less strict than in France.

Hulot resigned in August 2018 in protest at the pace of President Emmanuel Macron’s environmental reforms.

But with an approval rating of more than 70 percent in the Paris Match magazine weekly poll, the former nature programme presenter remains by far the most popular political figure in France.

He said that when France bans certain pesticides to protect people’s health, it goes against the interests of the chemicals giants.

“When all these lobbies are already trying to break down the door, why give them a battering ram with CETA?” Hulot wrote in an open letter to MPs published on the Franceinfo radio website.

“Have the courage to say ‘no’ tomorrow,” He said.

If parliament ratifies the agreement – which is likely, as Macron’s centrist LREM party has a comfortable majority – France will become the 14th EU state to do so.

However, any abstentions or votes against the treaty by some LREM members would be a blow to Macron, already under fire from some quarters for not making the environment a bigger priority.

The French government reiterated that the treaty was beneficial for the country.

“With CETA, we are sure that we will not import the kind of agriculture that we do not want,” Agriculture Minister Didier Guillaume said on France 2 television.

The CETA agreement can theoretically be scuppered altogether if an EU member country formally notifies Brussels that it has permanently rejected it. A year ago, Italy said it would not ratify it.

France’s Senate, held by the conservative opposition, will vote on CETA this autumn but does not have the power to block it. (Reporting by Marine Pennetier and Geert De Clercq; Editing by Alison Williams)

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