Huge buzz of the pasquale weekend, the photography ofEmmanuel Macron shortly after his meeting in Marseille on April 16, 2022 made people talk about him outside of France. the Huffington Post has compiled the media coverage of this shot taken by the official photographer of the outgoing president, Soazig de la Moissonnière.
His relaxed pose on a sofa, shirt unbuttoned revealing his hairy chest, left no one indifferent. The candidate for a second term has validated this image, as he assured on the set of It’s up to you the following Monday, but admits that he may have looked too quickly. However, assuming the photo, he himself made fun of it on the set of Anne-Elisabeth Lemoine after the hilarious chronicle of Bertrand Chameroy.
Across the Channel, big names in the British media have dealt with this unusual image of a leader in power. “Only in France would a man attempt to use his body as a (not so) secret weapon in a presidential campaign“, writes the journalist Samatha Brick for the DailyMail. According to her, the leader of the Republic on the move wants to attract the voices of women: “French women love a hairy chest – and secretly a lot of British women do too. They not only find him masculine and sexy, they find him safe and reassuring, everything you expect from a leader. (…) I have French nationality and I will vote this weekend. I’d be lying if I said these images of our president won’t be at the forefront of my mind..”
Emmanuel Macron has the honor of being compared to Sean Connery and Burt Reynolds with his “hairy chestt” (hairy chest) in The Guardian who applauds the com effect: “JI suppose someone on the Macron team – maybe Emmanuel himself, maybe Brigitte – has decided that manscaping (the act of shaving one’s hair, pubic or back, for example, to comply with a diktat) was outdated, more rigor. (…) The French have always had a healthier and more natural attitude towards body hair.” The Times asks himself:What do you look for in a politician? Honesty? Integrity ? Or a thick carpet of chest hair worthy of a Pantene ad?” The Telegraph wonders about the appropriateness of this strategy: “Yes, four buttons, it wasn’t an apologetic tuft or a subtle shade: it was a breastplate full of black hair.“
If the photo amuses and can distract some sensitive eyes, it does not prevent the husband of Brigitte Macron from preparing for the second round, facing Marine Le Pen. He faces this April 20 for a great debate the leader of the National Rally, defending “without safety net“the results of his five-year term and his program for the next five years.