For Emmanuel Macron, making his presence known in a room full of powerful people has always appeared to come naturally. But according to a new book, the French president may be getting some fragrant help.
Mr Macron, 47, wears “industrial amounts” of Dior Eau Sauvage, Olivier Beaumont, a senior journalist with Le Parisien says, such that his aides in the Elysee Palace can sense him approaching before he even enters the room.
Described as a deliberate “attribute of power”, the leader deploys the scent “at all hours of the day”, always ensuring to have a bottle to hand, “particularly in one of the drawers of his desk”.
According to extracts from The Tragedy of the Elysee, the book claims that “less-accustomed visitors may find themselves overcome by the floral and musky scent, as refined as it is powerful”.
A whiff of the perfume, which retails at about £100 for a 100ml bottle, is a sign of one thing, Mr Beaumont writes: “That the president is in the building.”
The book continues: “Just as Louis XIV made his perfumes an attribute of power when he paraded through the galleries of Versailles, Emmanuel Macron uses his as an element of his authority at the Elysee.”
Mr Macron uses the fragrance as a way “almost of marking his territory”, one aide says, adding that you can “feel it” when the president enters the room.
“It’s not subtle, but it’s fast. It means: ‘watch out, here I come!’,” a former aide says. “You only have to be in the Vestibule d’Honneur [ the Grand Entrance Hall in the Elysee Palace] to know whether he has been there recently or not.”
Even first lady Brigitte Macron is “still surprised by [his fragrance] and lets out a loud ‘ohhh’ when asked about her husband’s smell”, the book says.
But when her husband is travelling the world for crunch meetings with world leaders, the temptation for Ms Macron is too great, the book claims.
“[The smell] does not prevent her, when he sometimes flies abroad for a few days, from allowing herself a little coquetry: spraying herself lightly with her husband’s perfume... to have the feeling that her man is not very far away,” the book claims.
Sauvage, the world’s best-selling male fragrance – which actor Johnny Depp has been the face of since 2015 – is made by Dior, part of the LVMH empire owned by Bernard Arnault, Europe’s richest person.
Also according to the book, Mr Macron hands out pairs of sunglasses “each uglier than the last” to his guests when the sun is out on the palace gardens.
He has a case “containing about 20 pairs of second-hand glasses, of all shapes, not really fashionable, some with crooked arms, others with red rims, ‘even a little ridiculous’, from which you have to choose in order to be allowed to stay”.
One French minister says: “Clearly, it’s not meant to make us look good. I even wonder if, deep down, he doesn’t get a kick out of seeing us with these things. We look so stupid.
“Once you’ve borrowed one of these pairs, you don’t want to forget to bring your own.”
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