Macron has taken a big risk with his trip to the US. Will the gamble pay off?
Of all the extraordinary images and effusive displays of manly affection – hugs and kisses, grins and thumbs-ups, back-clapping, hand-clasping, yes, even tree-planting (of an oak, as it happens, from a wood in northern France where more than 1,800 US Marines lost their lives in the first world war) – it was the oddest.
Staring intently at his young guest’s immaculate suit, Donald Trump abruptly stretched out a finger, brushing something invisible off Emmanuel Macron’s collar. “We do have a very special relationship,” he said. “In fact, I’ll get that little piece of dandruff off – we have to make him perfect. He is perfect!”
The French president, understandably taken aback at a gesture breaching all known protocol for state visits, could do little but grin, rather manically. For French newspaper Libération, this was “embarrassing”. For Le Point, albeit tongue-in-cheek, it was “humiliation, a brilliantly executed blow, a stab disguised as an endearment”.
That may be overegging
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