French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday celebrated his birthday at the iconic chateau of King François I, a choice denounced by critics as an example of how he is “cut off” from the people, reports FRANCE 24.
Macron, who turns 40 on Thursday, is spending the weekend with his wife Brigitte and extended family at the chateau of Chambord in France's Loire Valley, the French regional daily La Nouvelle République reported.
With its fairy tale facade, elaborately turreted roofline and vast grounds, Chambord is probably the valley's best-known Renaissance chateau, located about 200 kilometres (125 miles) southwest of Paris.
Macron and his family will stay at one of the cottages on the vast estate, French media said, with a birthday gala to be held Saturday evening in one of the castle's 440 rooms.
The estate has several four-star guest houses which can be rented for 800 to 1,000 euros ($950 to $1,200) per weekend.
The Elysée Palace said Macron and his wife were using private funds to pay for their stay.
But the choice of venue was still criticised from some French politicians.
"Why is he celebrating his birthday at Chambord?" asked radical-left firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon, quoted in the newspaper Le Figaro.
"What a strange idea! I am so republican that everything about royal symbols exasperates me, I find it ridiculous," he said.
"While the French suffer from taxes, insecurity, immigration, Macron celebrates his 40th birthday at Chambord," rightwing politician Nicolas Dupont-Aignan said on Twitter.
"Eras go by but the oligarchy remains cut off from the people," he said.
Commissioned nearly 500 years ago by King François I (1494-1547), the immense chateau remains the largest of the Loire grand estates, boasting 365 chimneys and a 5,500-hectare (21-square mile) estate.
It also has boasts the largest enclosed forest park in Europe, a longtime favourite for presidential hunts.
The chateau, which attracts some two million visitors each year, has been listed as a regional UNESCO World Heritage cultural site.
Macron, a media darling during his campaign, has seen his image as a monarchical or even "pharaonic" leader climb from the night of his election, which featured a theatrical production at the foot of the Louvre pyramid in Paris.
Several newspapers have also expressed unease over the growing concentration of power in the presidency, and critics have said his use of executive orders to ram through landmark reform in September did not help matters.
In July, the cover of the leftwing daily Liberation mockingly depicted him as Jupiter, the Roman king of gods, and accused him of failing to share power – an accusation echoed by Le Monde.
Jupiter is now regularly used by Macron's critics who accuse his centrist government of favouring the rich.