“Yes, it hurts”: Macron says that he was criticized during the “Rencontres du Papotin”

New exercise for the President of the Republic. This Saturday evening, France 2 broadcast a new number of its program papotin meetings, during which a personality answers questions from journalists with autism spectrum disorders. It was up to the President of the Republic to play the game and answer his unexpected and eccentric questions.

Amid questions about his wife Brigitte Macron, his grandmother, his greatest fear or his wealth, Emmanuel Macron remarkably returned to the criticism he has received since the start of his first five-year term in 2017. Hit,” he said first, specifying which also depended on his mood or his tiredness. “That’s where you can sometimes react harshly, that you can be seen as arrogant or tough because you stand up for yourself or you defend yourself,” he added.

“But it is not the same that they criticize you in a debate, which is normal and can help you think, than that they attack you with more personal things and with more violent words. Don’t get used to it.”

“Terres where I had not been”

Papotin’s meetings is the television format derived from the newspaper The Pottin, launched in 1990 by Driss El Kesri, an educator at the Antony day hospital in Hauts-de-Seine. Since then, many actors, singers, writers, filmmakers and political figures have been interviewed by the newspaper’s staff. This new version, moderated by Julien Bancilhon, editor-in-chief of the publication and psychologist, was launched on France 2 in September based on an idea from the directors. Eric Toledano and Olivier Nakache (untouchable, Outstanding, The meaning of the party).

In the past, other presidents had already lent to the game of this interviewsuch as Nicolas Sarkozy who, in 2015, revealed in particular his disagreement with François Hollande in the paper magazine, while Jacques Chirac had received journalists from the papotin at the Élysée in 2022.

“They took me to areas where I had not been in other interviews with other journalists,” said the head of state before thanking the fifty or so journalists present.