Obama leaves France, ending landmark trip

PARIS - US President Barack Obama left Paris for Washington Sunday after a five-day foreign tour that included a landmark speech in Cairo, a visit to the former Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany and the commemoration of the 65th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy.

Obama spent the final hours of the journey on a private visit to the French capital with his wife, Michelle, and their two daughters, Malia and Sasha.

Early Sunday, the Obamas visited the Centre Pompidou, the French capital’s best-known modern art museum.

On exhibition at the museum were works by the American sculptor and artist Alexander Calder and the Russian-born abstract painter Wassily Kandinsky, as well as the centre’s permanent exhibition.

On Saturday, following the D-Day ceremonies at the American cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer, the Obamas visited the Cathedral of Notre Dame.

In the evening, the presidential couple and some friends had dinner at La Fontaine de Mars, a traditional Parisian bistro in the city’s Seventh Arrondissement.

A waiter at the restaurant, Gabriel de Carvalho, told i-tele news station that Obama had leg of lamb and the others ate steak, and that there was no wine consumed, only water.

Michelle Obama, Malia and Sasha remained behind to spend another day in the French capital.

They are to have lunch Sunday at the Elysee Palace with President Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy.

TV station i-tele reported that the three Obamas and the French presidential couple would use the occasion to celebrate Sasha’s eighth birthday.