FLASH
Shkruar nga Pamfleti
French President Emmanuel Macron has caused a stir on social media as users question whether he is preparing to confront Vladimir Putin after images posted on Instagram.
The release of official photos showing Emmanuel Macron in boxing gloves has been met with a mix of praise and shock in France.
The black-and-white photos of the French president, posted on Instagram on Tuesday by his official photographer, Soazig de la Moissonnière, show the president with clenched teeth and bulging biceps as he works out.
Social media users quickly began comparing him to Rocky Balboa, while others questioned the timing of the photos, as Macron has called on Europe to step up its response to Russia's war on Ukraine. Some said the photos showed him preparing to take on President Vladimir Putin, who is no stranger to photo shoots designed to show off his athletic prowess.
Women's magazine Femme Actuelle described the photos more flatteringly, writing that they showed "Brigitte Macron's husband" with "a determined look, as if he wants to do battle with his opponent ... He seems to hit so hard how much his bicep sticks out from underneath."
Other commenters expressed concern about the images. French Green MP Sandrone Rousseau reposted one of the photos with the comment: “What a defeat for progressivism. And what a poverty of political communication."
Writing in the centre-left newspaper Libération, Jonathan Bouchet-Petersen said the photos were a "pretty shocking choice of communication" and said it would have been preferable if the photo had actually been the product of a cheeky social media user, as it had initially assumed.
Éric Anceau, a history professor at the University of Lorraine, wrote in X that the photos were "part of the neo-populist masculinity that some leaders love today, starting with genre master Vladimir Putin."
Putin has previously been photographed fishing, hunting and riding bare-chested, playing ice hockey, defeating his opponents in judo and riding tanks and submarines.
Macron has also released a photo of himself lying on a sofa with his shirt unbuttoned to reveal a hairy chest during his 2022 election campaign.
Brigitte Macron revealed last year in an interview with Paris Match that the president does boxing twice a week and he has previously posed with boxing gloves to promote the workout ahead of the Paris Olympics.
Lini një Përgjigje