The US president, Donald Trump, has begun a visit to Paris, greeted with military fanfare as the French leader, Emmanuel Macron, showed him Napoleon’s tomb before they began talks on Syria and counter-terrorism. After landing in Paris early on Thursday morning, Trump honoured American first world war veterans in a ceremony at the US embassy to mark 100 years since the US joined the conflict, while Macron was engaged in a separate meeting with the German chancellor, Angela Merkel. The US president then arrived at the vast, historic military complex at Les Invalides, built by the Sun King Louis XIV, where he was met with a large French army reception and joined Macron in inspecting the troops. This seemed to flatter the US president, who has described himself as “a big military person” fond of army parades. Trump will spend 24 hours in Paris, as a guest of honour at Friday’s Bastille day celebrations. While a row continues in Washington over allegations that his family sought to collude with Russia to win last year’s US presidential election, the US president looked relaxed, patting Macron on the shoulder several times as he began a schedule of high pomp and pageantry. Macron has chosen to move on from his aggressive first handshake with the US leader and style himself as Trump’s new “straight-talking” friend on the international stage. Trump firmly held Brigitte Macron’s hand as he and Melania Trump arrived to greet the Macrons at the historic site, where they were escorted to see Napoleon’s tomb. In a live stream of the visit on Macron’s Facebook page, Trump could be heard asking Macron questions about Napoleon and French history. Macron has chosen to move on from his aggressive first handshake with the US leader and style himself as Trump’s new “straight-talking” friend on the international stage. Trump firmly held Brigitte Macron’s hand as he and Melania Trump arrived to greet the Macrons at the historic site, where they were escorted to see Napoleon’s tomb. In a live stream of the visit on Macron’s Facebook page, Trump could be heard asking Macron questions about Napoleon and French history. The two leaders were later due to spend more than an hour at the Elysée palace in talks where the key topics included Syria, Iraq, counter-terrorism and also possible financial support for French anti-jihadi military operations in Africa. In hosting Trump for 24 hours, Macron’s strategy is to set up a kind of of persuasive bridge-building. When the two leaders first met in May, the French president publicly asserted his superiority by crunching Trump’s knuckles and later rebuked him for for pulling the US out of the Paris climate accord, but the tone has now shifted. Observing the US president’s increasing isolation on the western stage, Macron has sensed an opportunity to reach out. Christophe Castaner, a government minister and spokesman, described it as “offering a hand” to bring Trump “back into the circle”. French diplomats said Macron had been concerned about Trump feeling backed into a corner. The French leader has seen a potential opportunity to sway US thinking and elevate the role of France – a nuclear power and permanent member of the UN security council – in global affairs, in particular on Syria and the Middle East. France is the second biggest contributor to the US-led coalition in Syria and French officials had expressed concerns about what vision the US hadthere beyond taking the military fight to Islamic State. An Elysée official said: “Where we have differences, we talk about them very clearly – such as on climate – but there are issues like counter-terrorism where we are on the same line and need close cooperation and common action.” A joint press conference is scheduled for Thursday evening – the first time Trump has faced a room full of journalists since the latest allegations about his election campaign’s relationship with Russia. The military pomp of the Trump visit reflects Macron’s new style of showmanship diplomacy, seen when he invited Russia’s Vladimir Putin to the Palace of Versailles. It is aimed at highlighting French prestige and grandeur and is as much for his domestic audience as foreign leaders. The Elysée added what one official called a personal “post-card” tourism touch: instead of dining at the Elysée palace, Macron and his wife will invite the Trumps to eat a meal cooked by the chef Alain Ducasse in a restaurant at the top of the Eiffel Tower. It is a deliberate attempt to show the French capital was still “welcoming” after Trump told a rally that “Paris is no longer Paris” following a string of terrorist attacks. The Trump organisation has no financial interests in France and it is unclear how well the US president knows the country. He said last year that the 2015 Paris terrorist attacks would have been very different if French citizens were allowed to carry guns. While the two leaders held talks, Brigitte Macron was to take Melania Trump on a visit to Notre Dame cathedral before a boat trip down the river Seine. The US first lady visited the Necker children’s hospital in Paris earlier in the day, where she spoke to children in French. Macron and Trump will attend the Bastille day military parade on the Champs Elysées on Friday morning, before the Trumps return to Washington. Security for the visit was tight. Far from the official events, anti-Trump protesters were gathering at a “No Trump Zone” at Place de la République, where organisers linked to the Paris’s Nuit Debout movement said they would stand against Trump’s “anti-migrant positions, sexism, Islamophobia and racism”. Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of the leftwing party France Unbowed, said last month that Trump was “not at all welcome” on Bastille day.