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EMMANUEL MACRON

Macron quips about cuddly ‘wedding’ pics with Lula

French President Emmanuel Macron has joined social media users in their jokes that likened his cosy pictures with Brazilian President Lula to those from a wedding album.

Macron quips about cuddly 'wedding' pics with Lula
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva and French President Emmanuel Macron pose during the French president's visit to Brazil. Photo by Ludovic MARIN / AFP

Images of the pair smiling and warmly embracing during Macron’s three-day visit to Brazil circulated online this week alongside light-hearted captions and montages suggesting a loving relationship between the leaders.

“Some have compared the pictures of my visit to Brazil to those of a wedding,” Macron wrote Thursday on X.

“I tell them it was one. France loves Brazil and Brazil loves France,” he said.

Macron retweeted a picture of himself and Lula smiling during the visit, overlaid on the background of a poster for the romantic 2016 film La La Land.

Lula responded to Macron’s tweet, which was also shared in Portuguese, with emojis of the Brazil and France flags alongside two small love hearts.

One picture shared on social media this week showed the leaders raising their arms underneath a large tree in the Brazilian jungle was edited to show them holding red balloons in the shape of a heart.

“They are going to marry in the Amazon and have their honeymoon in Paris,” joked one user on X, while others said pictures from the trip could make up a wedding album.

Macron’s trip to Brazil saw the two leaders announce a billion-dollar green investment plan for the Amazon.

Lula hailed the relationship between the two countries as one that created “a bridge between the global South and the developed world.”

Macron’s warm relations with Lula mark a departure from the frosty ties between the French leader and Brazil’s former right-wing president Jair Bolsonaro, who led the country from 2019 to 2022.

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POLITICS

Macron ready to ‘open debate’ on nuclear European defence

French President Emmanuel Macron is ready to "open the debate" about the role of nuclear weapons in a common European defence, he said in an interview published Saturday.

Macron ready to 'open debate' on nuclear European defence

It was just the latest in a series of speeches in recent months in which he has stressed the need for a European-led defence strategy.

“I am ready to open this debate which must include anti-missile defence, long-range capabilities, and nuclear weapons for those who have them or who host American nuclear armaments,” the French president said in an interview with regional press group EBRA.

“Let us put it all on the table and see what really protects us in a credible manner,” he added.

France will “maintain its specificity but is ready to contribute more to the defence of Europe”.

The interview was carried out Friday during a visit to Strasbourg.

Following Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union, France is the only member of the bloc to possess its own nuclear weapons.

In a speech Thursday to students at Paris’ Sorbonne University, Macron warned that Europe faced an existential threat from Russian aggression.

He called on the continent to adopt a “credible” defence strategy less dependent on the United States.

“Being credible is also having long-range missiles to dissuade the Russians.

“And then there are nuclear weapons: France’s doctrine is that we can use them when our vital interests are threatened,” he added.

“I have already said there is a European dimension to these vital interests.”

Constructing a common European defence policy has long been a French objective, but it has faced opposition from other EU countries who consider NATO’s protection to be more reliable.

However, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the possible return of the isolationist Donald Trump as US president has given new life to calls for greater European defence autonomy.

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