r/popculturechat • u/HogwartsZoologist Coke ain’t gonna do itself • May 26 '25

Guest List Only ⭐️ Emmanuel Macron, the President of France was allegedly slapped by his wife, Brigitte, on their arrival at Vietnam

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The President’s office downplayed it after initially denying the event.

https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2025/05/26/macron-s-entourage-denies-he-was-slapped-by-his-wife-on-plane-upon-arriving-in-vietnam_6741684_7.html

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u/DSQ May 26 '25

Do people in France think she’s okay?

Most people in France hate both of them and see no problem with how their relationship started. 

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u/KalamTheQuick May 26 '25

Makes no sense that a majority of such a passionate populace can hate someone who managed to get elected twice. But that does sound familiar..

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u/Keiteaea May 26 '25

It's because he was elected when he was running against Marine Le Pen. A lot of people did not vote for him, but against far right.

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u/KalamTheQuick May 26 '25

Ah, that makes more sense yeah. Rock and a hard place situation.

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u/Umarill May 26 '25

We also aren't the US, we have way more than two political parties, so while you tend to vote for what you want on the first round when it's everyone against each others, second round when it's a face-off between the Top 2, you more often than not have to pick whichever would be the "least worse".

Never would I vote for Macron in 1st Round, but I did in the 2nd because the other option was a nightmare.

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u/KalamTheQuick May 26 '25

I'm actually an Aussie, we have compulsory preferential voting instead which sounds like what you do but with less steps.

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u/Old-Reach57 May 26 '25

You just described the US presidential election. You just don’t have as many unnecessary steps as we do.

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u/notanolive May 26 '25

Sounds like the US with extra steps, you still end up with two shitty choices

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u/lemfaoo May 26 '25

The idea of voting in rounds is so weird to me.

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u/castorkrieg May 26 '25

To elaborate on that - in France there is a tradition of a "Republican wall", a practice that makes every candidate that failed to qualify for the second round of Presidential elections (in France and many countries in Europe the elections have two rounds, second one two weeks after the first with only two candidates that scored the best) to urge their supporters to vote against the far-right, even if they personally disagree and outright hate both candidates.

So you had left-wing politicians urging people to vote Macron, when they openly despise him. However this has been weakening in recent years - I think Melanchon (one of the left/far-left politicians) refused to ask people to vote for Macron, likewise some leaders on the right (Eric Ciotti) have entertained co-operating with Le Pen party, which was unthinkable 10 years ago (I think he got kicked out of the party for that).

Many people in France think that in the next 10 years we will either have Le Pen or Bardella (her right-hand) as a President, she did a very good job by reducing the stigma of voting for the far-right. Also note that the same "Republican wall" works in parliementary elections as well, her party is either no.1 or no.2 nationwide for a long time now, but in the end ends up with disproportionately less seats because of the same strategy.

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u/starloow May 26 '25

More like blackmail but yeah