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Jet-ski cover sparks outrage
French President Emmanuel Macron’s jet-ski photo at Fort de Brégançon became a political fight after Paris Match published the image on August 12 and headlined it “Last Summer in Command.”
“Paris Match chose a photograph of Emmanuel Macron on a jet ski at Brégançon”
Olivier Faure, first secretary of the Socialist Party, posted on X at 5:55 p.m. UTC on August 13 linking the jet-ski image to the heat wave and wildfires, ending with the sarcastic question: “Is that the message? It’s really well done.”
The dispute played out as France faced a heat wave that Météo-France said began on July 28, with an average afternoon temperature of 38°C on August 13.
On August 13, the Paris Match cover showed Macron on a jet ski at Brégançon “in the middle of a heat wave,” as the controversy was framed around the symbol of presidential leisure against wildfires and inequality in who could leave town.
Opposition voices and replies
Olivier Faure’s criticism was echoed by other left figures, including Pierre Ouzoulias, the communist senator, who told Europe 1 that Macron’s behaviour was “indecent” and said: “Personally, I would have preferred to see him in a fire truck, helping firefighters put out the blaze.”
The Telegraph reported that Alexis Corbière of the Leftist L’Après party mocked Macron’s “very polluting watercraft” at Fort de Brégançon and said: “This stage-managed image speaks volumes about the absolute megalomania of his character.”
In response to the photo report, Macron’s entourage said the photographer had “no authorized access” to shoot the report, and AFP was cited in an August 14 dispatch describing the images as stolen photos.
Le Soir said Macron was “continuing to work from the fort of Brégançon,” while the same coverage described the cover’s double-meaning headline “Last summer in command” as part of what drew criticism while fires raged and the country endured a heatwave.
Heat, wildfire scale, and stakes
As the political argument over the Paris Match cover intensified, authorities’ wildfire figures were used to set the context, with one report saying approximately 120,000 hectares of forests and vegetation had burned across France this summer.
“approximately 120,000 hectares of forests and vegetation have burned across France this summer”
That same account said the southwestern Gironde region saw 42,000 hectares destroyed, accounting for 35 percent of this year's total wildfire damage area, and it added that authorities determined that 9 out of 10 wildfires were caused by human activity.
The Telegraph also cited the European Forest Fire Information System calculation that wildfires have destroyed up to 95,000 hectares of land, compared with an annual average of 14,750 in the past two decades.
In the midst of that scale of destruction, the controversy’s immediate political stakes were tied to how Macron’s vacation was portrayed, with the Socialist Party leader’s framing that “During the heatwave, when France is burning, when some French people couldn’t go on vacation, the president is having fun on a jet ski at Brégançon” and the cover’s “Last summer in command” headline.
