Almost 9 million people watched King Charles’s coronation live on TV in France, where the pomp and ceremony sickened the radical left while impressing the far right, reports The Guardian.
As the French president, Emmanuel Macron, who is close to Charles, attended the service at Westminster Abbey, congratulating the monarchy who he said were “friends to France”, the French media’s massive focus on the event – with souvenir front pages and lengthy TV specials across different channels – caused high emotions across the polarised political landscape.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of the radical-left La France Insoumise, said: “In front of a people who have been so humiliated by neoliberal politics, this theatrics of a man covered in fancy dress with jewels and precious stones has something nauseating about it.”
Addressing a rally in Marseille, he said the “syrupy” French TV coverage of the British coronation was regrettable “when so many people live in misery”. He said it was “a reminder to us why we are so deeply republican”, adding: “Kings are monsters who accept such a display in front of so much suffering.”