Donald Trump has defended his son's decision to accept a meeting with a Russian lawyer offering damaging information on Hillary Clinton by claiming that most of his opponents would have done the same.

The US President is facing intense scrutiny over the news that Donald Trump Junior agreed to accept information Natalia Veselnitskaya in a meeting which was said to have been brokered by the Russian government.

He faced more questions over whether his son should have alerted the FBI to the approach as he held a joint press conference with the French president Emmanuel Macron on a visit to Paris today.

In response, he said "most people would have taken that meeting".

Mr Trump has been dogged by allegations of Russian links to his campaign - and his 39-year-old son's meeting is the clearest evidence yet of potential collusion.

It comes as the US conducts a highly-charged investigation into claims that Moscow intervened in the election to benefit Mr Trump as he faced Democratic rival Hillary Clinton at the polls.

Both the president and his son have denied wrongdoing.

They that no information on Ms Clinton was passed on during the meeting with Ms Veselnitskaya and Mr Trump senior was not made aware of the contact at the time.

Mr Trump Jr later admitted that he may have displayed poor judgement, saying "In retrospect I probably would have done things a little differently."

During the press conference, Mr Trump hinted that he could reconsider his refusal to sign up to the Paris accord on climate change, saying discussions were ongoing.

He also faced a highly awkward moment after he was reminded of recent comments suggesting that France and Germany were "infected by terrorism" and it was "their fault" for allowing in migrants.

"You know what, it's gonna be just fine because you have a great President," he replied.

"You have a tough president, he's not going to be easy on people that are breaking the laws and people who show this tremendous violence

"So, I really have a feeling you are going to have a very, very peaceful and beautiful Paris."