SCHWARZENEGGER SWOOPS IN FOR A KISS ON FRENCH FIRST LADY

SCHWARZENEGGER SWOOPS IN FOR A KISS ON FRENCH FIRST LADY



Terminator star Arnold Schwarzenegger has met French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris ahead of climate change talks - and appeared to take a shine to his wife.

The former Governor of California, who has attacked President Donald Trump over his withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, grinned as he placed a kiss on Brigitte Macron's cheek today.

Schwarzenegger is visiting the French capital alongside politicians, legal experts and activists who are launching a campaign for a global environmental pact.



It comes just weeks after President Donald Trump announced he would pull the US out of the 196-nation Paris Agreement on curbing dangerous global warming.

It brought a scathing response from Schwarzenegger, who said: 'One man cannot destroy our progress.

'One man can’t stop our clean energy revolution. And one man can’t go back in time. Only I can do that.'

The 69-year-old, whose film credits include Predator, Kindergarten Cop, Twins, The Expendables and Total Recall, said 200,000 Americans die every year from air pollution, and hit out at climate change deniers.

Backers of the proposed pact want it to protect the human right to a clean, healthy environment.

The end goal, organisers said this week, is a legal treaty under which states can be brought to justice for flouting the rights of a group or individual.



The new pact, being blueprinted by top legal minds from several countries, should eventually be put to the United Nations for adoption, and impose legally-binding obligations on signatory states, its drafters say.

'We already have two international (human rights) pacts... The idea is to create a third, for a third generation of rights - environmental rights,' said French judicial expert Laurent Fabius, who will chair tomorrow's meeting.

The earlier covenants - one for social, economic and cultural rights, the other for civil and political rights - were adopted by the UN in 1966.

Fabius, who chaired the 2015 UN conference that approved the hard-fought Paris Agreement, said the new text should outline rights and duties, provide for reparations to be made in case of a breach, and introduce the 'polluter pays' principle.

It would mean that people can bring states to court, "to have them held responsible or to compel them to adopt laws that are more protective of the environment," explained Yann Aguila of the French Club des Juristes, a think-tank involved in the project.

Participants in Saturday's meeting would include ex-California governor-turned climate campaigner Arnold Schwarzenegger, former UN chief Ban Ki-moon, as well as high court judges from several countries.

The meeting will be closed by President Macron, who after Trump's announcement pledged 30 million euros ($34 million) to fund the work of foreign climate researchers on French soil.