Elysée

The Elysée Palace is the official residence and principal workplace of the President of France, located on Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in Paris's 8th arrondissement. On 14 April 2026 it announced that Emmanuel Macron and Keir Starmer would jointly chair a leaders' video conference of over 40 nations on 17 April to design a multilateral freedom-of-navigation mission for the Strait of Hormuz. Senior diplomats were to hold a preparatory call on 16 April. The announcement positioned France as a co-convener of the largest diplomatic response to the Iran conflict yet assembled.

The Élysée has been a site of wartime diplomacy since the First World War. Built in the early eighteenth century and acquired by the French state in 1848, it has housed every president of the Fifth Republic since Charles de Gaulle. Under Macron, it has become a hub for European security diplomacy outside NATO structures, reflecting France's insistence on strategic autonomy. The 2022 Ukraine war saw Macron host multiple calls with Vladimir Putin from the Élysée; the 2026 Iran crisis saw it pivot to Coalition-building with Britain outside The Atlantic alliance's formal command.

The 14 April Hormuz announcement was operationally significant because it went beyond the UK-convened 2 April coordination meeting to propose a physical mission with defined command structure and rules of engagement for post-war passage. France and Britain acting together carries weight with European and Gulf States that might be reluctant to join a US-led operation, and the 40-plus nation frame was designed to give the mission international legal legitimacy rather than the character of a Western enforcement action.