Some assured that he had become wiser and more calm, that he had finished with the free-wheeling jokes and barbs that had marked his first years at the Elysée. But now here we go again. Booed and criticized yesterday during his two-day visit to Mayotte, the French archipelago in the Indian Ocean devastated by Hurricane Chido, Emmanuel Macron replied to a group of opponents with tones and words that risk further weakening his already battered image. “If this wasn't France you would be 10,000 times more in the shit!”, the president blurted out in the heated exchange with the authors of the protest shouting 'Macron démission'.
“I had people from the Rassemblement National in front of me who insulted France, who said that we were doing nothing for Mayotte”, the head of the Elysée defended himself in the evening to the microphones of Mayotte 1ère and Kwezi Tv. “Precisely because Mayotte is France, when you insult her, the president gets angry,” Macron pointed out. In the outburst that rages on social media, the shirt-sleeved president invites his detractors not to turn people against each other. “If you oppose people – he warns with a lexicon that is not strictly presidential – we are screwed”. And again: “Aren't you happy to be in France? If it wasn't France, you'd be 10,000 times more in the shit! There isn't a single place in the Indian Ocean where people are helped as much” as Mayotte, he says again Macron in the brief spat that sparked controversy and protests in parliament in Paris. Starting with Jean-Luc Mélenchon's France Insoumise and Marine Le Pen's Rassemblement National.
Keystone
Devastation in Mayotte
The reactions
“Message to those who believe that Macron should not resign: who imagines all this is possible in another 30 months?”, protested the LFI MP Eric Coquerel in reference to the expiry of the presidential mandate in 2027; while his colleague from the RN, Christophe Bentz, denounced the “contempt” of the head of the Elysée towards “these French people who suffer from a natural catastrophe”. As if that wasn't enough, to the poisons of Mayotte were added those aroused by the indiscretions published by Le Monde. According to the newspaper, Macron would have used less than gratifying epithets against blacks, Arabs and homosexuals in private. A piece of news flatly denied by the Elysée, but which was enough to arouse the wrath of the left in Paris, with accusations of racism, sexism and homophobia.
The precedents
Among Macron's alleged controversial outings, an exchange he had in 2023 with the then Minister of Health Aurélien Rousseau about the difficulties of the national health system. “The problem with the emergency room in this country is that it is full of Mamadou,” the president would have said, thus targeting black-skinned doctors and white coats. Another alleged shock phrase, in 2019, when he used the term “rabzous” to indicate French people of Maghrebi origin. “These racist words from the President of the Republic, taken up by the newspaper Le Monde, are an insult to the Republic. It is an absolute shame. I hope he goes away”, thundered the coordinator of La France Insoumise, Manuel Bompard, while the communist Ian Brossat He pointed the finger at “undoubtedly racist statements.”
As for homosexuals, the president would have renamed them “petits pédés” or “Grande Tarlouzes”. Furthermore, again according to Le Monde, at the Elysée it was customary to refer to Palazzo Matignon, the seat of the prime minister in Paris, as “La cage aux folles” at the time when the owner was the openly homosexual prime minister Gabriel Attal. The presidential palace's denial was blunt: “It is surprising that some words clearly taken from political opponents are presented as facts”, deplored a source close to the head of state. But now the omelette was done
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