On November 5, 2010, President Hu Jintao met with former French President Chirac in Paris.

Hu spoke highly of Chirac's outstanding contributions to the building of China-France all-round partnership during his tenure. He also expects Chirac to continue to play an important part in promoting the friendship between the Chinese and French people and the exchanges and cooperation between the two countries.

He indicated that China-France relations, with the care and vigorous impetus of several generations of leaders of both countries, have been standing at the forefront of China's relations with western countries since the two countries established diplomatic ties 46 years ago. The international situation is undergoing profound and complicated changes with peace, development and cooperation remaining the mainstream. Meanwhile, such global challenges as terrorism threats, climate change and food security are getting more and more serious and need to be tackled by all countries together. It is in this spirit that China takes an active part in the international cooperation.

Chirac expressed thanks to Hu for taking time off his busy schedule and arranging the meeting. He has always had friendly feelings with China from the bottom of his heart and admires China's long history of culture and wise policy. China is a country with a big population, ancient culture and a long history of civilization. The Chinese nation is a peace-loving nation. China which grows peacefully has a big influence on today's world and should play a major role in world affairs. China actively participates in the international cooperation and the settlement of global issues in a peaceful way. China's development is peaceful, which is beneficial to world peace and shall not cause any worry. He firmly believes that China's development is unstoppable.

Hu stressed that China sticks to the road of peaceful development now and will do it in the future. China has achieved remarkable development after more than 30 years of reform and opening up. However, because of a large population, a weak foundation and unbalanced development, China still faces many problems and difficulties. It has to make unremitting efforts in order to realize its economic and social development goals. It will contribute more to world peace and development through its own growth.

Ling Jihua, Wang Huning and Dai Bingguo were also present at the meeting.