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French President Emmanuel Macron spent nearly €475,000 (£400,100) on a lavish dinner for King Charles III and Queen Camilla last year, blowing a hole in his annual budget in the process, the country’s top audit court has reported.
Mr Macron’s office racked up a multi-million euro budget overspill last year as it pulled out the stops on a lavish lobster dinner for Britain’s King Charles and other state banquets, including Indian prime minister Narendra Modi.
Mr Macron treated the King and his wife Queen Camilla last September to blue lobster, Bresse French poultry with mushroom gratin, and a selection of French and English cheeses during the state dinner in the famed Hall of Mirrors of the 17th century Versailles Palace.
That set the French state back €474,851, including €166,193 on catering and €42,515 on drinks.
At the dinner – which was also attended by the likes of Hugh Grant, Mick Jagger and Arsene Wenger – King Charles told Mr Macron that “your generosity of spirit brings to mind how my family and I were so greatly moved by the tributes paid in France to my mother, the late queen”.
In his toast, the French president said that “despite Brexit, and because our ties are so old, I know that we will continue to write together part of our continent’s history”.
Meanwhile, eager to convince New Delhi to buy more French submarines and fighter jets, Mr Macron also held a state dinner in Mr Modi’s honour at the Louvre in July 2023, costing €412,000, the auditor said.
News of the presidency’s spending jars with the outgoing government’s message that France can ill afford its current levels of public spending, among the highest in the world in relation to the size of the economy.
The auditor also raised an eyebrow over the rising cost of presidential trips abroad, including the growing use of an Airbus A330 for international flights at a cost of over €23,000 per hour.
As a result of the higher spending on state receptions and official travel, the presidency’s costs rose 6.5 per cent last year to €117.2 million, leaving a budget shortfall of €8.3 million, the audit office said.
It now says the Elysée now needs to make “significant efforts... to restore and sustain the financial balance of the financial balance of the presidency”.
