With ease, Brigitte Macron adapts to universes as rich as they are varied as First Lady. Previously in a college for the famous dictation of the ELA association, she was alongside her husband in Vatican City to go to an audience with His Holiness Francis on October 24, 2022, indicates AFP. Emmanuel Macron was indeed received by the Pope on Monday for the third time since he became president, against a backdrop of war in Ukraine and debate on the end of life in France. On this occasion, the first lady of France chose an impeccable outfit to appear before the religious leader of the Catholics: a mid-length black dress with a lavallière collar, shoes with thin heels and an elegant low bun-banana as a hairstyle. A sober and irreproachable choice that she accompanied with her delicate smile. During her previous interview with the Pope, she had already shown herself in black.
The tete-a-tete with the sovereign pontiff was to be followed by an interview with the number two of the Holy See, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, as well as with the pope’s “minister” of foreign affairs, Bishop Paul Gallagher. This is his third papal audience: the first in June 2018, while the second dates back to less than a year ago, in November 2021.
President Macron has been in Rome since Sunday where he delivered a speech at the opening of an interreligious peace summit organized by the Italian Catholic community Sant’Egidio. He delivered a plea for peace in Ukraine, while emphasizing that this could only happen when the Ukrainians “will decide” and according to “terms” of kyiv. On the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Pope Francis has not ceased to condemn the conflict since February, while trying to maintain a diplomatic dialogue with Moscow and the Russian Orthodox Church, very aligned with the positions of the Kremlin. Emmanuel Macron also called on religions, in his speech on Sunday, to their “duty of resistance” versus “the drive for purity” and the return of “great fears” which agitate Western societies.
According to the Elysée, the interview should also focus on social debates in France, such as the reception of refugees and perhaps the end of life. The Pope spoke out against euthanasia on Friday during a speech to French elected officials, just as Paris is preparing to launch a citizens’ convention on this delicate issue to lead to a possible change in the law, a subject on which the star Line Renaud had been very involved. Views differ on the subject…