Biden barely mentioned Trump in France. He didn’t have to.

PARIS — After a pair of speeches in Normandy and a state dinner, President Joe Biden flew to the Aisne-Marne cemetery on the outskirts of Paris on Sunday simply to lay a wreath in memory of the American World War I dead buried there.

It wasn’t a subtle choice.

Aisne-Marne is the cemetery visit former President Donald Trump was supposed to make in 2018 but skipped, his aides then claimed, because of heavy rain.

The Biden team is betting that the subtext won't be lost on those voters back home who are paying attention. The trip was meant to commemorate the 80th anniversary of D-Day. It also was designed to draw a distinction with Trump. For that reason, it became a major test: not only of Biden’s ability to withstand the scrutiny of his age, but of his capacity to use a grand international setting to reach voters back home.

Biden barely mentioned his general election opponent. But his journey to Aisne-Marne served as a coda to a visit to France that was all about drawing sharp contrasts with Trump. He honored the veterans and war dead whom Trump did not. He touted the international alliances Trump has threatened. And he warned of the fragility of democracy, portraying it as under threat from the type of isolationism that has come to define Trumpism back home.

Throughout Biden’s trip here, aides worked to manage scrutiny about the president’s stamina and health, which were reignited by a lengthy Wall Street Journal article on the matter published right at his departure. The president’s schedule on two of the five days included few or no public appearances. He spent the first almost 24 hours after arriving ensconced inside his hotel, to prepare, aides said, for the D-day speeches. At Pointe du Hoc, his limousine drove over a makeshift platform laid atop the bumpy dirt clifftop to, it appeared, shorten the distance he had to walk over uneven ground. The White House did not say why Biden didn’t walk with Macron down the Champs Élysées as part of Saturday’s welcome ceremony. But he did walk a good distance over uneven ground while visiting a grave at the Normandy cemetery and again at Aisne-Marne on Sunday.

For months, White House aides had pointed to the trip to France, the first of three major gatherings of world leaders over the next month, as a campaign springboard. People involved in the planning were eager to use the settings and ceremony as a demonstration of Biden’s values and leadership on the world stage, according to five administration officials who were granted anonymity to discuss their strategy.

“This moment was to lay out the stakes,” said one administration and campaign official who was granted anonymity to speak about internal strategy. “And they couldn’t be higher.”

Biden’s back-to-back speeches at Normandy — the first to commemorate the 80th anniversary of D-Day, the second to talk about threats to democracy — weren’t filled with rousing oratory; certainly not when placed against the address President Ronald Reagan made from the same spot — Pointe du Hoc — 40 years earlier.

But aides traveling with Biden here and those back in his campaign’s Wilmington offices were pleased with the end result. For two days in a row, the president’s comments honoring the heroes of D-Day and calling on Americans to continue to defend democratic values was the lead story on network and cable news — an uncommon feat for a Biden address. Even more, several networks preempted regular programming to carry the speeches live.

But even with the favorable coverage, there is no guarantee this trip will dramatically alter the contours of a presidential contest that has been remarkably static. How long a tailwind the visit to France will have with the public will depend, to a large degree, on the campaign’s ability to leverage the speeches going forward.

Already, there are plans to feature images and speeches from this visit in ads and videos over the weeks and months ahead. And aides feel that, on this front, Trump gave them a gift. Not only had the former president been found guilty of 34 felonies for falsifying business records prior to Biden’s departure for France, but he spent the time Biden was there suggesting that a second Trump term would be driven in part by a desire for revenge.

Several network anchors noted the stark “split screen” in coverage. And Biden campaign officials themselves took to the airwaves to hammer home that contrast.

“While President Biden is leading on the world stage, honoring the men and women who changed the course of history in this country, we see Donald Trump return to the trail as a convicted felon, doubling down on threats of political violence and extremism,” said principal deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks during a Friday afternoon appearance on CNN.

For a five-day trip to a single country, a rarity for Biden or any president, there was little actual news made. In his poignant commemorations of D-Day’s 80th anniversary, Biden framed the war in Ukraine as the continuation of World War II and Cold War battles for democracy. He then met on Friday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, reaffirming America’s support for the one democracy in Europe currently under attack and announcing a new $225 million package of defense and humanitarian aid.

On Saturday, he took part in an official state visit with French President Emmanuel Macron, and while substantive discussions took place about Ukraine, trade issues and other topics, there were few “deliverables” announced. The meeting itself was the point.

"This week, we have shown the world once again the power of allies and what we can achieve when we stand together,” Biden said on Saturday when the two leaders made statements to the press but did not take any questions.

But if the trip was heavy on photo ops, that, too, served Biden’s purposes. For months, Biden has been left in a defensive crouch as the war in Ukraine worsened and the war in Gaza affected his political standing back home. Over five days in France, he sought to reframe the story about his leadership on foreign policy back to more favorable ground, to bask in the glow of alliances and continued American commitment to democratic nations.

Next week’s G-7 summit in Italy offers Biden another chance to underline those aspects of his approach to American leadership ahead of the first presidential debate with Trump on June 27. Biden’s time here, which coincided with the European Union’s elections, was aimed at delivering an implicit but clear warning to the American electorate: that if Trump is returned to office, those alliances could quickly fray.

While aides opted to not use Trump’s name — a decision, three of the officials said, borne of not wanting to overtly carry domestic politics overseas — the former president was constantly in the backdrop. Shortly after the president finished his speech at Pointe du Hoc on Friday, the campaign released a video compilation of Trump’s past statements and reported comments denigrating and questioning those who have served in America’s armed forces.

Some went even further, likening Trump to the Nazi leader “the greatest generation” fought to defeat 80 years ago.

“Donald Trump has ridiculed veterans as suckers and losers, he’s repeatedly echoed fascist dog whistles, calling migrants ‘vermin’ that ‘poison the blood of our country,’” said Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.). “He’s running on the same campaign of vindictiveness and bloodlust that American soldiers died fighting against 80 years ago on the beaches of Normandy. If history isn’t repeating itself, it’s certainly rhyming.”

No one on Biden’s team was willing to go as far as Goldman. But aides to the president did feel as if they had ample fodder. They were quick to point out that Trump has repeatedly attacked the rule of law, assailing his guilty verdict and threatening to use the Justice Department to seek retribution for those he believes attacked him.

Had they simply gone to France to deliver lofty addresses, it would have given them the image they wanted to project. To their delight, they also got the split screen.

“Trump is making the argument for us,” said one Biden adviser not authorized to speak publicly. “It’s an obvious contrast on either side of the Atlantic.”