Tuesday, June 20, 2023, 2:20 p.m.
It could be a typical scene from a bachelor party: a man takes a beer with his right hand, raises it to the sky and while his friends cheer him on (“hey, hey, hey!”), he drinks it, proudly, a drink in just 17 seconds. Finished his feat, he breathes, smiles and greets. But it was not a farewell nor is the man just anyone. It is about the president of France, Emmanuel Macron, at the gala rugby league title party, won by Toulouse, and his celebration opens a new debate in the ‘Hexagon’. Is the president setting a good example for the country?
Criticism has come to Macron from the political opposition, which considers that his image swallowing beer does a lot of damage to campaigns against the abusive consumption of alcohol in young people and also shows a “toxic masculinity” that seeks to be banished.
“Toxic masculinity in political leadership in one image,” environmentalist deputy Sandrine Rousseau wrote on Twitter. Socialist senator Laurence Rossigno has spoken along the same lines. “Drink a beer in one gulp. What are you trying to prove? What is a real guy? Manly cliché, masculinist, old-fashioned populism,” she opined.
In his lowest hours of popularity for the pension reform, which has raised half of France up in arms, Macron has suffered popular rejection in recent months. Since the approval of the controversial decree, every time he went out anywhere in the country, he was greeted with the noise of pans, although the pressure has decreased. But any popular event has become a stress test for his bodyguard. On April 29, during the French Cup soccer final, the president received a loud whistle that forced his security team to increase the device to prevent further incidents.
#Macrons #bad #drink