RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The French television channel CNews’ presentation of backstage events at last month’s G-7 meeting in Biarritz, France, captured a conversation between the presidents of Chile, Sebastián Piñera, of France, Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in which the French head of state strongly criticizes the president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, and has the backing of the other two leaders present.
At the time, Macron was discussing President Bolsonaro’s endorsement of an insult to his wife, Brigitte Macron. It was Piñera who brought the matter up, describing Macron’s speech at the press conference as “incredible”, in which the French president said it was sad, especially for Brazilian women, for a president to behave in such way. “Of course, I had to react, do you understand?”, Macron replied to Piñera, who said he agreed with him.
“I wanted to be peaceful, I wanted to be respectful and constructive with the ‘guy’ and respect his sovereignty,” Macron continued. “But I couldn’t accept that,” he explained. At this point, the German Chancellor approaches the circle and cries out “no!”, condemning Bolsonaro’s comments.
However, the conversation did not end there. Macron spoke about the imbroglio involving his foreign minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian when he was in Brazil and had his meeting with Bolsonaro canceled because the Brazilian president needed a haircut. “You know that when my foreign minister went there,” the French president asked Piñera, adding: “He should have seen him and canceled at the last minute to go get his hair cut. And filmed himself. Sorry. But that’s not the attitude of a president,” said the French leader.
