Emmanuel Macron has said his phone calls with Donald Trump and other world leaders are like sausages: better not explain what’s inside, reports The Guardian.
During a news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Macron was asked about a CNN report on Monday which claimed a phone call between the French president and his American counterpart last week had been “terrible”.
Borrowing a famous quote from the 19th-century Prussian statesman Otto von Bismarck, Macron summed up his policy of refraining from making off-the-record comments about his conversations with other world leaders.
“As Bismarck used to say, if we explained to people how sausages were made, it’s unlikely they’d keep eating them,” he said. “So I like it when people see the finished meal, but I’m not convinced the kitchen commentary helps with delivering the meal or eating it.”
A readout from the French presidency of Macron’s call with Trump last week said the 40-year-old president had told Trump his decision to impose tariffs on the exports of US allies was “illegal” and a “mistake”.
The shorter White House readout of the same call stated the conversation had focused on trade and immigration, without elaborating.
“Macron thought he would be able to speak his mind, based on the relationship. But Trump can’t handle being criticised like that,” CNN quoted an unidentified source as saying. “Just bad. It was terrible.”
Macron, appalled by his predecessor François Hollande’s frequent off-the-record comments to journalists, has kept the press at a distance since his election last year and banned his aides from giving behind-the-scenes accounts of his presidency.
“You can go and ask the people who make comments, but here in Paris we don’t make comments on how it went, or how hot, cold, warm or terrible things are. We just go ahead and do things,” Macron said.