Macron the 'Sun President' and his parallel universe
Monday June 21st marked the annual celebration of music in France known as the Fête de la Musique. But, says Mediapart co-founder François Bonnet in this op-ed article, the event was not celebrated in quite the same way by everyone. There was champagne and state honours for the rich and powerful at the Élysée on the one hand; and baton charges and tear gas for young people listening to music in the streets on the other. In what proved a bizarre juxtaposition, he argues, the French presidency managed to organise two entirely separate worlds, that only co-existed side by side thanks to social and police violence.
WhereWhere are the late psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan and the late social theorist and semiologist Roland Barthes when we most need them? What savage delight they would have taken in dissecting the events of Monday 21st June and the behaviour of Emmanuel Macron in his posture not so much as the Sun King of France but as its Sun President.
