French President Emmanuel Macron is facing a backlash after he and his wife, Brigitte, were filmed enjoying a Céline Dion concert on Friday night, the eve of the nationwide protests that turned into riots across France on Saturday. Critics compared the couple to Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.
The Macrons attended Dion's second-to-last show of her Paris residency at the Plénitude Arena in Nanterre, watching from a private box, Le Parisien and Paris Match reported. A video posted by Paris Match shows Brigitte Macron singing and dancing to "Dans un autre monde" while the president stands beside her, watching and clapping.
The next day, about 550,000 people marched against rising prices and failing public services. Violent groups torched buildings and looted shops in several cities.
"Macron and Brigitte are acting like Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. They appear to think that there is no problem with anything," Lina Bernard, an organiser of a protest rally in northern Paris, told the Mail on Sunday. Bruno Attal, a former police officer turned journalist, posted on Friday night: "France is burning. Brigitte and Emmanuel Macron are at the Céline Dion concert. An end of reign, Titanic-style!" Europe 1 host Eliot Deval said, "We would have preferred to see him alongside the police."
The Macrons were not the only politicians at the residency. Gala reported that Édouard Philippe, Gabriel Attal and Yaël Braun-Pivet also went to shows, and La Tribune Dimanche reported that Marine Le Pen attended one of the 16 concerts. ProfiloPolitics found no public response from the Élysée to the criticism. Macron is due to address the nation on Sunday evening.
Photo: Office of the President of Ukraine (president.gov.ua), CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
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