It has become a great Emmanuel Macron classic: strolling through the streets in shirt sleeves, sleeves rolled up like a symbol… and the little controversial sentence in response to a passerby who calls out to him. A look back at all these times when the president let go, before regretting it.
Maybe that's how he's the best – or the worst, depending on your point of view. Summer sun, shirt sleeves, an almost good-natured walk in the streets of a city, and then the drama: a passerby calls out to him, asks him for his opinion or expresses resentment linked to his politics, and he responds. Emmanuel Macron has, since his entry into French political life, been a fan of the little phrase, sometimes calculated, sometimes bursting out a little too suddenly, without worrying about the media and popular consequences, when faced with a somewhat vehement interlocutor.
“They are completely stupid”
He once again demonstrated all his know-how in this area during his trip to Rio, on the sidelines of the G20 hosted by Brazil. Asked by a passerby about the situation in Haiti, a former French colony, the president mentioned the departure of Garry Conille, dismissed from his position in the midst of a political, economic and security crisis on the Caribbean island. While the onlooker affirms to the head of state that France is “responsible for the situation in Haiti”he replies that “there frankly, it is the Haitians who killed Haiti, leaving drug trafficking [prospérer] ».
He then continues with comments about the Haitian Presidential Transitional Council which have since made the rounds on social networks: “And there, what they did, the Prime Minister was great, I defended him, they fired him! It's terrible. It's terrible. And I can't replace him. They are complete idiots, they should never have released it, the Prime Minister was great. » Those around him denounce a video “truncated”and explains that the President of the Republic was not insulting the people of Haiti.
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On social networks, the damage is done: the president of the rebellious group at the Assembly Mathilde Panot had a blast: “Shame on Macron who says Haitians are “completely stupid”. Let the President start by knowing the history and the rogue debt imposed by France on Haiti, the first black Republic in the world, standard of the fight against the abomination of slavery. Support for the Haitian people, target of the imperialist and racist arrogance from Trump to Macron. »
OSS117 on the old port
Another scene, same scandal, and same rolled-up shirt. In June 2023, questioned by a mother whose son is struggling to find a job, the president made a barely disguised reference to his famous “All you have to do is cross the street [pour trouver un emploi] ». In the middle of a crowd of local residents, the president takes his paternal tone, which some Internet users have compared to that of OSS117: “We go down together, we go around the port, I would be surprised if there isn't a restaurant or café that isn't looking. »
Here again, Mathilde Panot had drawn her back, estimating that « Macron caricature Macron » sur X (ex-Twitter) : “The solution to unemployment? Cross a street in 2018. Walk one meter in May 2023. Now is the time to take a tour of the Old Port in June 2023. Faced with the contempt of the people, the only unemployed person we hope for in the country is Emmanuel Macron. Even on the right of the political spectrum, the video was surprising.
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Senator LR from Bouches-du-Rhône, Valérie Boyer, had her little words on the future of the head of state re-elected a year earlier: “When Emmanuel Macron is no longer President, he could retrain as an agent at Pôle emploi. »
Shirt arm and studio actor
But throwing controversial statements in shirt sleeves is not just an outdoor sport, practiced under the blazing sun. The comfort of a Parisian radio studio lends itself just as well. It was in this media gala outfit that the man who had just set up shop at the Ministry of the Economy in 2014 displayed his first mark of social contempt, live on Europe 1. Asked about companies in difficulty, the future president of the Republic took the liberty of quoting the Gad company slaughterhouse, insulting some of its employees: “In the companies given to me, on the files that I have, there is the Gad company. You know ? This slaughterhouse. There is a majority of women in this society. There are many who are illiterate. »
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Aware of the impact that his videos taken on the fly, sleeves rolled up, can cause, the tenant of the Élysée leaked in 2018 a video filmed by a cameraman, published by his communications director Sibeth Ndiaye on Twitter). We see him in the middle of an informal discussion with advisors, dropping a short sentence that will go down in the annals of his presidency: “Social policy, look: we put a crazy amount of money into social minimums, the people are still poor. We're not getting out. People who are born poor, they stay poor. Those who fall poor, they stay poor. We have to have something that allows people to get by. » Here again, far from the original goal – to show a social president who is worried about the fate of the most needy – the video caused a scandal. Emmanuel Macron was then accused of denigrating the French social model.
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