Emmanuel Macron is a fine connoisseur of French variety.
And his singers from the 1970s and 1980s. Whenever he has the opportunity, the President of the Republic does not hesitate to quote lyrics that have set the pace for popular culture.
After having subtly recalled being a
“child of both schools”,
as during his big press conference two weeks ago, echoing a famous title by Michel Sardou dating from 1984, here he is this Wednesday, thanks to a state visit to Sweden, singing along to the lyrics of another sacred monster: Joe Dassin.
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At the end of a debate on democracy at Lund University in Sweden, Emmanuel Macron, surrounded by students and choristers, themselves accompanied by a piano, joined in the game by singing
Les Champs -Élysées,
famous hit by the Franco-American artist released in 1969. Without even glancing at the words that appeared behind him, the head of state seemed to know by heart the text adapted into French by the composer Pierre Delanoë.
“In the sun, in the rain.
At noon or midnight, there is everything you want on the Champs-Élysées
,” crooned Emmanuel Macron, who, between Sweden in recent days and Brussels on Thursday, is perhaps homesick.
A moment which may seem out of place at a time when France is experiencing an almost unprecedented agricultural upheaval.
This is not the first time that the president has been drawn by a musical group.
In April 2023, after a televised speech broadcast two days after the promulgation of the pension reform, Emmanuel Macron was filmed singing, at the top of his lungs, a Pyrenean anthem, with a group of young people he met in the street.
The sequence had been widely criticized, at the time, by oppositions.