France’s President Emmanuel Macron has come under fire for using a gas-guzzling jet ski on the French Riviera while demanding citizens curtail their energy use.
In a modern take on the infamous, if possibly apocryphal, remark of the French queen Marie Antoinette that, if the starving people were unable to buy bread, the state should “let them eat cake”, President Emmanual Macron has caused a stir among his countrymen for jet-skiing while his country faces the worst energy crisis in decades, BFMTV reported.
The French leader, fresh off a stinging defeat in the National Assembly elections, losing his legislative majority and dashing his dreams of a “Jupitarean” presidency — and indeed his hopes of becoming the undisputed top dog of Europe — fled Paris to vacation with his wife Bridgette at Fort de Brégançon, the official retreat of the President of France since 1968.
Paparazzi pictures over the past week have shown the French leader lounging in the sun and cruising the Mediterranean in a not-so-eco-friendly jet ski, less than one month after calling on the public to engage in an “effort of solidarity” by cutting their energy usage in the face of European gas shortages amid the war in Ukraine.
The scandal has also drawn comparisons to another historically dubious yet highly symbolic moment in European lore, Emperor Nero fiddling as Rome burned, as France has been beset by massive wildfires amid the dry summer, with thousands of acres of land going up in flames.
On a visit to a fire-torn region in July, the French leader had declared that the forest fires were a “consequence of climate change”.
Despite his support for the Great Reset green agenda, Macron’s jet-skiing holiday has drawn critics from the green-wing of French politics, with prominent Europe-Ecology-Greens party MP Sandrine Rousseau chastising the president.
“This confirms the persistent impression that he does not understand climate change,” she said. “And nowadays, it is criminal not to understand it.”
The Elysée Palace has so far refused to comment on the president’s jet skiing holiday.
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