Detox. No, Macron does not greet an absent crowd on May 8.

Where does the intox come from?

In a protocol fixed since 1982, the President of the Republic went up, Monday, May 8, the Champs-Elysées, on the occasion of the commemoration of the end of the Second World War. On the video of the Élysée YouTube channel, we can notice the few people present, except around the platform.

This presidential car, windows closed and lonely on this wide avenue, reacted on social networks. An indignation fueled by one image in particular: that of a President, standing this time outside the vehicle, and saluting… a crowd totally absent. “Hello tree!! Hello the street lamp!! Hi the facade!! Hello the sidewalk !!!”, thus mocked the @La_Pollice account on Twitter,. In another post viewed over 300,000 times, a twittos also published this image, adding: “He greets who the guy, the windows? The photo, taken from a screenshot of BFMTV, was also taken by MP LFI Clementine Autainwith this comment: “Frightening images of a president isolated as ever, by dint of governing against his people”.

Why is this wrong?

In reality, this photo dates from the inauguration of Emmanuel Macron, May 14, 2017, as can be seen on this BFMTV archive (at 31′31′’). An error that the Internet user who published it initially recognized, by posting then a photo from May 8, 2023, but without deleting his first tweet. It is clear that this ceremony has rarely attracted crowds. Evidenced by the images of 2022, posted by Internet user. Even during the 2017 commemoration, the day after Emmanuel Macron’s first election, the avenue was very sparse, as can be seen in these archive images from TF1.