French Inauguration

One does one's best to try to ignore the political antics on the southern side of the Channel but even I managed to take on board something of the Presidential inauguration of M.Macron in Paris

There was the depressing sight of him in a lounge suit rather than the white tie of past inaugurations and the comdedy provided by the BBC when its website referred to the President being presented with a "necklace" which had belonged to Napoleon. What they actually meant but were either too ignorant themselves to know or assumed their public were too ignorant to understand was the Grand Master's Collar of the Legion of Honour...

I came across a set of quotations from M. Macron which are taken from a book by Eric Fottorrino Macron Par Macron which is based around interviews with the new President.

The first to be quoted, and the one that caught my eye is as follows:

“In French politics, this absence is the presence of a King, a King whom, fundamentally, I don’t think the French people wanted dead,” said Macron. “The Revolution dug a deep emotional abyss, one that was imaginary and shared: the King is no more!” According to Macron, since the Revolution France has tried to fill this void, most notably with Napoleon and then Charles de Gaulle, which was only partially successful. “The rest of the time,” said Macron, “French democracy does not manage to fill this void.”

Well we know what the answer is to that do n't we?

There is more from the book at  http://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/emmanuel-macron-policies-beliefs-philosophy

All in all, let's face it - no match for le Sacre at Reims.

Vive Le Roi!