The Paris 2024 Olympic Games are looming. And almost 100 days before the opening ceremony,
Emmanuel Macron
was the special guest this Monday, April 15 of
Apolline de Malherbe
. Broadcast live on RMC and BFMTV, the interview took place in the Grand Palais in the capital, still under construction at the moment in order to host the fencing, taekwondo, armchair fencing and parataekwondo. The President of the Republic thus answered questions from the political journalist but also from his team of consultants made up of David Douillet, double Olympic judo champion and former Minister of Sports under Nicolas Sarkozy; Marion Bartoli, Wimbledon winner and host of the show “Bartoli Time” on RMC and Rémy Boullé, Paralympic bronze medalist in canoe-kayak.
Among the topics covered, the challenge of accessibility and the problem of public transport were addressed. So widely that Apolline de Malherbe had difficulty getting the guest to change the subject.
“It’s about thinking about it as soon as we have new infrastructure, which we did. And it means adapting past infrastructure. This is what we are going to do but we will not be there for the Games on the metro
,” he admitted lucidly before adding:
“But it is also having gestures Daily "
.
Sensing that the President of the Republic was preparing to digress and seeing the clock ticking - it was already 9:04 a.m. and the interview was not over - Apolline de Malherbe attempted a transition to address a hot topic: the Seine and its pollution .
“At worst Rémy, you will put the kayak on the stage... I would like us to talk about the Seine, Mr. President
,” declared the journalist while the politician continued his statement. And while Emmanuel Macron did not see fit to suspend his remarks to respond to his interlocutor, the latter is amused by the situation.
“You saw, I’m trying”
“I’m trying eh. You saw, I'm trying. Honestly, I’m going
,” she quipped, with a smile on her face, even as the president spoke.
“Mr. President, Mr. President, Mr. President [...] stop! "
, she tried, struggling to make her voice heard in the face of Emmanuel Macron determined to follow through on his idea on accessibility. Apolline de Malherbe, far from getting annoyed, turned the situation into a joke by smiling and trying to cut off her columnists when they brought up the guest again.
It was after a few minutes that Apolline de Malherbe - finally - managed to assert herself by questioning him about the Seine:
“Mr. President, you said you would swim. Honestly, haven’t you changed your mind a little?”
. And if Emmanuel Macron maintained that he wanted to swim in the river that crosses Paris, he also went well beyond the end time of the interview initially planned. The special program ended 20 minutes late with the intervention of Alexis Jandard, vice-world diving champion in 2022 who recently stood out on social networks for his fall during the inauguration of the Olympic aquatic center.