Macron boxing pictures show ‘ultimate virility’
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Intimate portraits of Emmanuel Macron boxing have been described as the ultimate show of “virility”.
Soazig de la Moissonnière, the official presidential photographer, released two black and white images of a sweaty French president hitting a punch bag in a gym on Instagram.
They showed him with bulging biceps as he struck the bag with gritted teeth and veins protruding.
Nice-Matin, a regional French daily newspaper, said the images conveyed a message of “ultimate virility” that brought to mind those of a bare-chested Vladimir Putin practising judo or riding a horse.
CNews said Mr Macron appeared “ready for battle, his gaze fixed on the punching bag as if determined to beat his opponents”.
“With his features drawn, his muscles bulging and his teeth clenched, the president looks like a real warrior. A situation that echoes the tense news of recent days,” it said.
That was a nod to Mr Macron’s apparent shift from dove to hawk regarding his stance to the war in Ukraine, urging Nato not to rule out deploying troops on the ground.
“Perhaps at some point – I don’t want it and I won’t take the initiative – we will have to have ground operations…to counter the Russian forces,” he told Le Parisien over the weekend.
Satirists have had a field day over his Damascene conversion, with cartoons of him in military gear appearing.
The latest images caused some admiration but mainly mirth on French social media.
“He’s in Olympic form” four months from the Paris Games, wrote L’Essentiel.
Some users suggested the president was trying to ape Robert De Niro in Raging Bull or Sylvester Stallone as Rocky Balboa.
“Who has more flow and virility between Emmanuel Macron and Vladimir Putin? And who would win an MMA fight?” wrote one.
Many suggested that Mr Macron must have had recourse to Photoshop to enlarge his biceps. “AI can do wonderful things,” said one commentator. Another Twitter user wrote: “I’m afraid of nothing, not even ridicule.
“Please tell me this is a montage or a sketch. What a poser lol. Everything is spin with him.”
‘Macho codes’
Sandrine Rousseau, a Green MP, criticised the pictures as the latest evidence of “macho codes used ad nauseam”.
“What political misery. What a defeat for progressivism. And what poor political communication.”
But the images were praised by Gaspard Gantzer, a French spin doctor, who described them as “interesting” both in terms of public relations and aesthetics.
Mr Macron was intent on showing he was “in good physical shape… and remains someone who is full of energy and motivated”, but also that he “is ready to fight”.
Mr Gantzer added that many French people shared Mr Macron’s “cult of the body. They go to the gym and sometimes have aesthetic surgery. The boys love showing their big arms and their muscles in the gym”.
Brigitte Macron, the French first lady, said in December that her husband spent 45 minutes working out twice a week, notably with a punchbag.
In January, he published a video of himself in the gym in a French boxing federation T-shirt, boxing gloves slung over his shoulder. In the clip, he encouraged the French to take up half-an-hour of exercise a day to enter into the spirit of the Olympics in Paris this summer.
He is not the only world leader to use sport for public relations purposes. Nicolas Sarkozy was often shown jogging or cycling. Rishi Sunak is said to work out every morning on his Peloton exercise bike and Barack Obama released photos or films of him playing basketball, baseball and other sports.
Ms de la Moissonnière has released other photos of Mr Macron being physical in an apparent bid to counter claims he is aloof and out of touch.
These include the centrist in an unbuttoned shirt displaying a hairy chest during a rally in Marseille in 2022 and another in a green hoodie that triggered comparisons with Volodymyr Zelensky’s preferred attire.
