Civilisation’s last line of defence runs through the Élysée Palace. Emmanuel Macron has been lambasted by his opponents for necking a beer with Toulouse rugby players to celebrate their victory over La Rochelle in the Top 14 final. The video of le Président chugging down the offending brew has got mustard up the noses of French legislators across the political spectrum.
The Times reports that Socialist senator Laurence Rossignol condemned Macron for ‘a macho cliché’ while Gilbert Collard, an MEP for the far-right Reconquête, dismissed Macron’s actions as ‘showing off’. Green deputy Sandrine Rousseau accused the president of engaging in ‘toxic masculinity’. Far be it from me to tell my granny how to suck les oeufs but if you’re French and yet somehow a booze-hating puritan, you’re doing it wrong.
Macron is in good company when it comes to politicos cracking open a brewski in public. The late Bob Hawke, prime minister of Australia in the Eighties, was famed for his beer-sculling abilities, once downing two pints in 11 seconds.
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