By John Irish and Ingrid Melander PARIS (Reuters) -French President Emmanuel Macron will likely urge China's President Xi Jinping, who arrives in Paris on Sunday for a rare visit, to reduce trade imbalances and to use his influence with Russia over the war in Ukraine.

China’s president arrives as EU anti-subsidy investigations and tensions over espionage, Ukraine and Taiwan continue

France is backing a European Union probe into Chinese electric vehicle exports and in January Beijing opened an investigation into imports of brandy - which is mostly made in France - a move widely seen as tit-for-tat retaliation amid a growing set of EU probes.