‘Real warrior’: Are Emmanuel Macron’s boxing photos a message for Russia’s Putin?

Emmanuel Macron’s recent photographs are grabbing eyeballs. After scrutinising pictures of Kate Middleton and speculating about her whereabouts, social media has found new fodder in the French president’s images showing him hitting a punching bag.

The two black and white photographs of Macron, shared by his official photographer – Soazig de la Moissonnière – on Instagram, display the French leader boxing with gritted teeth, veins protruding and biceps bulging.

Soon, these pictures went viral on social media with users comparing him to Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky Balboa. Mentions of Russian president Vladimir Putin were also not far behind.

The images come days after Macron’s changed stance – from dove to hawk – on Russia, with the French president calling on Europe to ratchet up its response to Moscow’s war on Ukraine.

Let’s take a closer look.

Reactions to Emmanuel Macron’s snaps

Macron’s pictures have received mixed reactions. While one description calls them the ultimate display of “virility”, others have expressed dismay over the snaps.

As per BBC, some even questioned whether the photos had been “enhanced”. After ‘ Kategate’, social media users appear to be looking for Photoshop in every other image.

Pointing to the size of Macron’s biceps, users reposted the boxing picture alongside an image of the French president with a skinnier arm.

Journalist Jonathan Bouchet-Petersen wrote in the centre-left Libération newspaper that the photos were a “rather dismaying communication choice”, reported The Guardian.

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Some users joked Macron was preparing to take on Putin.

Broadcaster CNews said that Macron appeared “ready for battle, his gaze fixed on the punching bag as if determined to beat his opponents”.

“With his features drawn, his muscles bulging and his teeth clenched, the president looks like a real warrior. A situation that echoes the tense news of recent days,” it said.

According to The Telegraph, the picture evoked amusement on French social media. “He’s in Olympic form” for the summer Paris Games, the newspaper L’Essentiel wrote.

French Greens MP Sandrine Rousseau retweeted a picture of Macron, slamming it as another evidence of “macho codes used ad nauseam”, reported The Telegraph.

“What a defeat for progressivism. And what poverty of political communication,” she wrote.

However, the photos also garnered admiration from some quarters. In a flattering description, the French weekly women’s magazine Femme Actuelle wrote they showed “Brigitte Macron’s husband” with “a determined look, as if he wants to do battle with his opponent … He seems to hit so hard that his biceps pop out from under his black T-shirt.”

French first lady Brigitte Macron revealed last year that her husband boxes twice a week. As per The Sun, Macron also used to play football for an elite school in the 2000s.

In January, he posted a video of himself wearing a French boxing federation T-shirt in a gym, urging people to take up half an hour of exercise every day to embrace the spirit of the upcoming Olympics in Paris, reported The Telegraph.

This is not the first time that the French president’s pictures have got tongues wagging. Macron had raised eyebrows with an image showing him in an unbuttoned shirt revealing a hairy chest during his 2022 election campaign, noted The Guardian.

Are the images a message for Putin?

Macron flexing his muscles reminded some of Putin’s pictures flaunting his sporting side. The 71-year-old Russian president has earlier been photographed riding shirtless on a horse, playing ice hockey, shooting, and beating opponents in Judo.

Pictures of Putin swimming in freezing waters and riding into the Black Sea in a submersible have also surfaced.

Éric Anceau, a history professor at the University of Lorraine, wrote on X that Macron’s images were a “part of the neo-populist virility that certain leaders are fond of today, starting with the master of the genre (until now) Vladimir Putin”.

These photos come amid Macron’s recent threats of deploying Western troops in Ukraine. Last week, the French president said in an interview that Western ground operations in Ukraine might be necessary “at some point”.

“Maybe at some point – I don’t want it, I won’t take the initiative – we will have to have operations on the ground, whatever they may be, to counter the Russian forces,” he told newspaper Le Parisien, as per AFP.

Speaking on French TV last week, Macron premonished that Moscow is seeking to increase its power and would not stop now. “If we leave Ukraine alone, if we let Ukraine lose this war, then for sure Russia will threaten Moldova, Romania and Poland,” he was quoted as saying by BBC.

Earlier in February, Macron did not rule out sending Western troops to Ukraine, urging European allies not to be “cowards”. He had also warned that Moscow could target NATO countries in the coming years.

The French leader’s remarks had prompted stern reactions from European nations, which view sending troops to attack Russia as a red line, according to Daily Mail.

NATO members such as Germany, the United Kingdom and Poland also rejected Macron’s suggestion.

Macron’s comments had not gone down well in Russia either. During his annual state-of-the-nation address in late February, Putin had warned NATO against intervening in Ukraine or it could lead to a nuclear war.

″[The West] must realise that we also have weapons that can hit targets on their territory. All this really threatens a conflict with the use of nuclear weapons and the destruction of civilisation. Don’t they get that?” the Russian president had said in an apparent response to Macron’s remarks.

With inputs from agencies