Video exhibiting Emmanuel Macron downing a bottle of beer in 17 seconds has put the French president on the centre of a row over binge consuming and poisonous masculinity.
The footage exhibits Mr Macron being handed a bottle of Corona within the Toulouse altering room after the rugby union membership beat La Rochelle on the Stade de France in Paris over the weekend. The president had watched the match, the French Top 14 closing, from the VIP enclosure.
Being urged to down the drink in a single, Mr Macron drains the bottle to cheering from the gamers and training employees, many with their telephones out to seize the second. The president then slams the empty bottle on the counter.
“Toxic masculinity in political leadership in one image,” tweeted Sandrine Rousseau, an MP for the Green celebration.
Ms Rousseau’s tweet prompted a reply from an MP inside Mr Macron’s personal celebration, Jean-Rene Cazeneuve, who mentioned: “A president who is sharing in the joy of 23 players and taking part in their traditions. That’s all.”
Bernard Basset from the charity Association Addictions France told BFMTV that the “president has a accountability as a job mannequin when it comes to setting a wholesome instance for behaviour”.
He added: “In this case, he is associating sport, events and the consumption of alcohol in a context of virile peer-pressure the place everybody drinks a bit an excessive amount of.”
Mr Macron has a knack for associating himself with France’s sports activities groups, having given a pep speak to the members of the boys’s nationwide soccer staff of their dressing room after they misplaced the World Cup closing to Argentina in Qatar late final yr.
The beer-drinking stunt could also be geared toward Mr Macron presenting himself as a person of the folks. He might actually do with a bump within the polls, along with his recognition having been hit by the passage of a regulation growing the retirement regulation earlier this yr – a transfer that sparked mass protests throughout quite a few cities.
The president is a staunch supporter of the French wine business, having as soon as claimed that he often drank a glass of wine and lunch and likewise had one other within the night. He has additionally beforehand blocked makes an attempt by public well being authorities to advertise “dry January” – which sees folks beginning the yr alcohol-free.
The Liberation newspaper sought to remind Mr Macron of a few of his earlier ideas on consuming, from a go to to an agricultural truthful in 2018. “There is a public health scourge which is young people binge-drinking on spirits or beer, but it’s not with wine,” it reported him as saying.
Source: www.impartial.co.uk