Pictures of French President Emmanuel Macron during his summer vacation at the sea sparked a wave of widespread political criticism in France, after he appeared practicing water activities at a time when the country is facing widespread forest fires and high heat waves, which prompted his opponents to accuse him of disconnecting from the reality in which the French live.
The controversy began after Paris Match magazine published pictures of Macron, 47 years old, while he was at Fort Brégançon, the summer residence of the French presidency overlooking the Riviera. In one of them, he appeared riding a jet ski.
Other photos showed the French President on a hoverboard, while another shot showed him laughing while driving a speedboat carrying a number of his bodyguards.
The photographers’ lenses extended to his wife, Brigitte Macron, 73 years old, who appeared wearing shorts, a T-shirt, a baseball cap and sunglasses during the holiday.
The pictures angered a number of politicians and opponents, who considered that the timing of their publication was inappropriate in light of the fires and difficult climatic conditions facing several French regions.
French Senator Pierre Ozoulias told Europe 1 radio that Macron’s behavior was “inappropriate,” saying that he would have preferred to see the French president in a fire truck alongside the firefighters participating in confronting the fires.
“This is where it should have been,” he added.
In turn, Alexis Corbière, a member of the left-wing “La Pré” party, mocked the photos in which Macron appeared, criticizing his use of a watercraft that he considered to be highly polluting.
Corbiere said that the “carefully prepared” image, as he described it, reflects what he considered a lack of understanding of the magnitude of the environmental, social and democratic crisis that the country is going through.
These criticisms bring back to the forefront an image that Macron’s opponents have long used in his political confrontation, as they accuse him of distancing himself from the concerns of the popular classes. Some of his opponents have called him “the president of the rich,” in reference to his previous professional background at the Rothschild Investment Bank.
Some of his critics also use the nickname “Jupiter” to refer to him, after the chief god in Roman mythology, as part of their criticism of what they see as an overly centralized presidential style.
The debate over holiday photos becomes more sensitive due to the scale of the forest fires that France witnessed this summer, as data from the European Forest Fire Information System indicates that about 95,000 hectares of land have been burned.
This number represents a significant increase compared to the annual average of about 14,750 hectares over the past two decades, which reflects the exceptional nature of the current fire season and the expansion of the affected areas.
Last July, a fire near the city of Bordeaux in southwestern France destroyed more than 200 homes and evacuated about 220,000 people, including residents, tourists, and second-home owners, according to media reports.
Circulating estimates indicate that losses resulting from forest fires may exceed $14 billion, at a time when the French authorities are facing challenges related to rising temperatures and the expansion of areas exposed to the danger of fire.
On the other hand, sources close to Macron defended the French president, stressing that he postponed the start of his summer vacation until August until the major fire was under control, and that he did not stop exercising his presidential duties during his break.
According to these sources, Macron continued to work and make contact with a number of country leaders during his stay at the summer headquarters, in an attempt to respond to the criticism that portrayed him as moving away from his responsibilities in conjunction with the crisis.
The controversy in France is not related to the president’s summer vacation itself as much as it is related to the timing of the images and the symbolism they carried, as the scenes of marine sports and entertainment came in contrast to the images of fires and evacuations that French regions experienced during the past weeks.
Thus, summer photos of Macron turned into new material for the political confrontation in France, between opponents who see them as additional evidence of the president’s distance from citizens’ crises, and those close to him who confirm that the vacation did not prevent him from pursuing his responsibilities, and that he originally postponed them because of the fires.
