Having recently hosted Bono and Rihanna and taken centre stage during Donald Trump’s visit to France, Brigitte Macron now has a new role to keep herself busy. The French President’s wife was named last week as the godmother of the first baby panda born in a French zoo. Macron said she was ‘very happy’ to be asked. But, increasingly, France is not feeling her joy and there is growing resentment at her presence in the Élysée Palace.
An online petition launched two weeks ago by the artist Thierry Paul Valette opposing the creation of a formal role for Brigitte Macron as First Lady has been signed by nearly 200,000 people. The petition says that it would be immoral of her to use public money ‘at a time when the state wishes to make savings in the military budget and wishes to clean up political life’. Pointing out that Macron already has ‘two or three assistants as well as two secretaries and two security staff’, Valette said her exact role should be decided by a referendum and not a presidential decree.
To an extent, Madame Macron has her husband to blame for her growing number of critics.
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