Denigrating others, especially high-profile people, has become a national sport. "Macron is a contemptuous little technocrat, a hypra-intelligent roquet (sic)," says actor Michel Vuillermoz.
Anglo-Saxons have the same word for this, "bashing", which means both striking violently and morally exhausting. Our friends across the Channel love "French bashing" to make fun of our quirks. More paradoxically, we have seized on this practice and the expression.