GETTY Donald Trump and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron will meet for lunch in Brussels on May 25

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The pair will meet for a “long lunch” to “compare opinions”, a senior White House official told the AFP, adding also that recent phone call between the two newly elected leaders had gone “very well”. The official said the presidents “are two of the most recent leaders on the international scene” before adding that the Mr Trump found the 39-year-old centrist “impressive”.

He said Mr Macron’s win “was clearly a stunning election victory” before saying that even though the two men disagreed on many things, they were both “outsiders who transcend traditional political barriers”. The US official also brushed off rumours Mr Trump had wanted presidential runner-up Marine Le Pen and not Mr Macron to win power, claiming a tweet in which Mr Trump had praised Mrs Le Pen’s hardline immigration policies had been “misinterpreted” as a message of support and “blown out of proportion”.

GETTY Mr Macron’s landslide victory has been hailed by most, but not all world leaders

Mr Macron’s landslide victory has been hailed by most, but not all world leaders. Russian president Vladimir Putin, a Le Pen supporter, said during the ‘New Silk Road Summit’ in Beijing on Sunday that things would be “better” under Mr Macron than they had ever been under former Socialist president François Hollande, but that things would never be “as good” as when Jacques Chirac was in power.

Mr Chirac, a conservative, was president from 1995 to 2007, and was succeeded by hardline right-winger Nicolas Sarkozy. Former French prime minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, who also attended the Beijing summit, confirmed Mr Putin’s claims via Twitter.

Emmanuel Macron's inauguration as French president, in pictures Sun, May 14, 2017 Emmanuel Macron is elected president of France, defeating Marine Le Pen, who threatened to take France out of the European Union. Play slideshow AFP/Getty Images 1 of 32 French President Emmanuel Macron poses with his wife Brigitte Trogneux at the Elysee presidential Palace

GETTY Vladimir Putin said things would never be 'as gopod' as when Jacques Chirac was in power