BIARRITZ, France — Lunching on a patio overlooking the Bay of Biscay at the Hôtel du Palais on Saturday, President Trump gushed over Emmanuel Macron, the French president and the host of the weekend’s annual Group of 7 meeting, held this year in the quaint beach town of Biarritz in the south of France.

But even as Mr. Trump bragged about what he called “a special relationship” with Mr. Macron, saying they have “been friends for a long time,” members of Mr. Trump’s administration were publicly and privately dumping on the French president and his team. They complained that the focus of the summit was more on “niche issues” than the global economic challenges facing their nations.

[Big issues are being addressed in Biarritz. We have live updates from the Group of 7 summit.]

Senior administration officials said that the agenda would center too much on issues designed to play well with Mr. Macron’s domestic audience — like climate change, income and gender equality, and African development — and was engineered to highlight disagreements with Mr. Trump’s administration.

They accused Mr. Macron’s aides of ignoring pleas by Trump administration officials to focus the summit, which runs through Monday, on national security and a looming economic slowdown. And they said Mr. Macron was purposely trying to fracture the Group of 7 by veering away from its longstanding mission of ensuring that the strains on other economies do not spread globally.