PARIS The picture of Emmanuel Macron in a white shirt and hairy chest after the Marseille rally? And you. The head of state with Zelenskyj beard and military sweatshirt? Always her. Soazig de la Moissonière is the mirror of the French leader. The 40yearold Breton is seen in the media as something of a Pete Souza, the man who shot Barack Obama’s cool image by following him through his two terms as President of the United States.
She came to his side as the almost unknown Minister of Economics and has never left him since. She has been the official photographer of the Elysée since 2017. She explained at the time: “Macron has never put any limits on my work, I was very free to access the behindthescenes campaign from the beginning.” The work of Macron’s personal photographer, reposted on her Instagram account, participated in the Narrative of a young, dynamic president and the atypical couple with Brigitte, his former teacher, who is twenty years his senior. Many political backstage images show the leader with his wife always by his side, showing a strong complicity.
Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, it’s his footage depicting the worried President of the Republic during phone conversations with Vladimir Putin and other European leaders that has also become the basis for online memes. And the ones that show Macron in his office in a sweatshirt and jeans and with a unkempt beard are hers, too, defined by the French media in light of the vote as a move to appear confident but also tired from too much work.
For a month he has accepted a parttime job under his contract at the Elysée and is dedicated to the election campaign. Last Saturday he was with the presidential candidate in Marseille, in the fiefdom of JeanLuc Mélenchon, where Macron went to present proposals on ecology to persuade leftwing voters to vote for him. Narrating the rally from behind the scenes, he portrayed the head of state with a white shirt open over a hairy chest and lounging on a leather sofa. “It was very hot in Marseille, as you can see,” Macron joked a few days later, perhaps surprised by the reactions on social media. The presidential candidate admitted the photos had been approved, but then added, “Maybe I went a little fast on this one.” subjects